New Degrees Focus on Global Study

This month the board of directors approved two new degree programs and a legal center during its Feb. 12-14 meeting on Main Campus.

In keeping with the university's global outreach and focus on interdisciplinary work, the new initiatives have an international focus and features elements that reach across Georgetown disciplines.

Center for Transnational Legal Studies

The Law Center received approval for the Center of Transnational Legal Studies (CTLS), which will be based in London. CTLS is a global education center founded in collaboration with six other law schools worldwide. Faculty will examine the development of transnational legal institutions and processes that will expose students to new perspectives outside of their home country and legal system.

"The need to understand law in a global context has never been greater," said T. Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of the Law Center. "By educating the very best students from around the world about the evolving nature of comparative, international and transnational law, the center will prepare them for legal, business and nonprofit careers that take them beyond the borders of their home countries."

The other founding schools tentatively are based in Switzerland, Israel, England, Australia, Singapore and Canada. Efforts continue to include schools from Latin America and Asia and may be expanded over time.

Georgetown will take the administrative and academic lead on the center at first by keeping the books, overseeing publications, maintaining a Web site and managing student registration.

CTLS plans require students to come to the center for one semester or a year to enroll in courses that will be co-taught by faculty members from the different schools. For the first three years, the center will welcome 60 to 80 students each semester, with 10 to 20 coming from Georgetown.

Law professors Nina Pillard and David Cole, who will serve as faculty co-directors for the first year, already have developed a curriculum. It includes an intensive, multiday exercise in transnational and comparative law along with a core course called Transnational Perspectives on Legal Theory. Students also will choose from six elective course offerings.

Global Executive MBA

The McDonough School of Business is adding a new degree track, the Georgetown-ESADE Global Executive MBA program, that is a partnership between the business school, the Walsh School of Foreign Service and ESADE Business School, a Jesuit-affiliated institution in Spain.

The degree, which is heavily focused on residencies around the globe, allows students to learn through immersion, interaction and networking with colleagues and organizations. There are six modules of 11 days each during the 16-month program. The residencies span four continents and range from advanced to emerging economies.

"We're working with an inverted pyramid structure," Gordon Swartz, associate dean for executive education at the business school, said of the curriculum. "We'll start out with a broad view of global environment of business. Then, we'll narrow down into the environment of industrial dynamics, then narrow further into competitive dynamics between firms."

The program's capstone module examines how executives define and lead transformations in global markets, institutions and firms.

Swartz said that although the school requires at least eight years of experience from the executives who apply, he predicts students will have closer to 12-15 years of experience in the business world.

The business school already runs an international executive MBA that meets every other week in Washington, D.C., and has four residencies around the world. But, Swartz said the Washington location makes it nearly impossible for executives worldwide to take advantage of the program. Because the new degree includes global locations, the business school expects a wider geographic diversity of students in the program.

Ph.D. In Global Infectious Diseases

The Center for Infectious Disease is offering a new doctoral degree that will continue the global focus of studying new diseases and those re-emerging. According to the center, the degree program is a moral imperative for Georgetown, where collaborations with the government, internships and mentoring will prepare students to tackle infectious diseases.

"If our generation does not meet the challenge of global infectious disease head on, the world will fall into shadow," the degree proposal reads. "To meet this challenge effectively requires professionals with the requisite interdisciplinary knowledge and skills."

Health-related research must increasingly use a global approach, the proposal says, because few diseases can be controlled without understanding their origin and patterns of spreading.

The degree track will rely on interdisciplinary studies across many fields at Georgetown, including microbiology and immunology, bioethics, biochemistry, cell biology, public policy and courses within the law and medical centers. Organizers also plan to capitalize on Georgetown's relationship with institutions in China, Qatar, the Philippines and Chile.

Students, who must enroll in tracks based on interest, should complete 36 credit hours, an internship and a dissertation to earn the new doctorate. The curriculum will include new and already established courses. About six students each year will be accepted into the program.

Source: Blue & Gray

February 25, 2008