Messages about MBA
It was a pleasure learning more about our cooperative ventures. In these days, working together is more important than ever, and I look forward to the fruits of our collaboration.
Carl V. Patton
President GSU
We are pleased with the progress made in the MBA Program in such a short time. You and your colleagues are doing great work with the programs, and our collaboration is mutually beneficial. Most importantly, were are building lifelong friendships.
H.Fenwick Huss
Associate Dean GSU
I believe that the program can be positioned as one of the leaders of its kind in the Educational Reform process in Azerbaijan . One of the reasons being the incorporation of non-traditional approaches to the academic curricula and overall organization of the MBA. As a teacher I feel really satisfied about all this experience at the Oil Academy, which reinforces my conviction that teaching may be a difficult and, also, most important, a highly rewarding career.
Jorge Orduna
Professor
I thoroughly enjoyed my time teaching at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy . Thank for the opportunity. This was very convenient and is something in other school in Azerbaijan where I had taught provided me. The rooms where I taught were spacious and well equipped.
As for the students, generally I was very impressed with their enthusiasm and diligence , especially in light of the fact that almost all of them were working full-time. Class attendance was generally good. In sum I thoroughly enjoyed my time teaching at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy this semesters. Thanks for the opportunity.
Erik Davies
Professor
It has been a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of the MBA Program at ASOA.
The students on the whole seen highly motivated and mentally sharp, and I count on them to carry a high standard of professionalism to the field of management in Azerbaijan . Teaching students like these can be much more rewarding than in America where the MBA Program is so much more routine.
Thomas Whalen
Professor GSU
I came to the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy to teach in the MBA Program. I was honored to do so. The students at ASOA very responsive to my course there. They are dedicated, intellectually alert, and committed to the MBA Program. I have taught the course I delivered at ASOA in other parts of the world as well as other universities in Baku . The students at ASOA are equally as good as any students I have encountered around the world. I commend each of them for their hard work and wish for them health and prosperity.
Robert Elrod
Professor GSU
The MBA students at the ASOA are a delight to teach and know. For the most part the students are honest , hard working and motivated to learn. All most all of the students were working full time in either an international business or local business setting, so they understood the need for English in business.
Corliss Payne
Instructor
Upon my second visit to the Oil Academy to teach in the MBA Program I find much of the good still endures while quality should have been made in other areas of it.
First I would like to note that although the quality of the first students that I taught was good, that , current group was ever better. Perhaps the thing which I note most in this area in the genuine interest of the student is not only getting a good grade in the course but also gaining new knowledge which they can apply in their lives.
Christopher Lemley
Professor GSU
How are we evaluated ?
The setting is familiar . Classrooms populated with students whose daytime occupations make way for evenings and Saturdays of MBA instruction . It could be the Robinson College in Atlanta . But the setting is actually more than 7.0OO miles away in Baku , the capital of Àzerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic . The MBA is a unique program for working professionals offered by the Azerbaijan Stale Oil Academy (ASOA). a leading public university, in cooperation with the Robinson College . Begun in 1998 as the result of a grant from the U.S, State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the ASOA's MBA program fills the void for advanced business education in a nation just now coming to grips with a market-based economy. Before the fall of the Soviet Union , conventional business curriculum was unheard of and largely unnecessary.
Bijan Fazlollahi, associate professor in the Institute of International Business , who spearheads the program for Robinson said, “What we are really doing here is taking the Oil Academy 's best faculty regardless of subject and turning them into business instructors. It's like the ancient proverb says “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for one day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”.
But having Robinson faculty also teach on site adds considerable credibility to the program. Among those who have taught at the ASOA in addition to Fazlollahi are Robert Elrod from decision sciences, Dileep Mehta from finance, Fred Jacobs from accountancy, Chris Lemley and Sevo Eroglu from marketing. Deborah Butler from management and Judy Quick, a BeSouth Corporation executive and temporary instructor in international business. Quick also helped design the business plan and worked with local officials in establishing the program.
While Fazlollahi has been the key cog in shaping this program, the head, of the MBA offering for the Oil Academy . Rafik Aliev. can be credited with much of its current success. A member of the Academy of Sciences and a noted researcher:
Aliev is very high on what the Robinson College has brought to his country. So, too is ASOA Rector (President) Siyavush Karaev who said, "The Robinson partnership has accelerated business education at this institution and in our country."
In commenting on the future of the program, Robinson Associate Dean H Fenwick Huss , a major proponent : of the College's international programs worldwide, said that all signs are positive for long-term success, "With sound ideas, local support, the promise of continued federal funding and Robinson's expertise present, there is no limit to what can be accomplished”.
Gary McKillips
The state of business, vol. XIV N3, Fall 2001 |
