Poland Agreement Expansion

Columbus, Ohio - Franklin University is proud to announce the expansion of its agreement with the Wroclaw School of Banking (WSB) in Poland to include a dual degree program.  Under the expanded agreement, beginning in the fall of 2010, students holding a Polish bachelor’s degree will have the opportunity to take a year of Franklin’s undergraduate level courses to work toward earning a Franklin bachelor’s degree as well.  The courses, taught in English, will be offered at WSB’s Wroclaw campus and are taught by a combination of Columbus-based Franklin faculty members traveling to Poland and local faculty.

Under the original agreement, the Franklin MBA Program is being offered to students in Poland at WSB’s campus in Wroclaw, a major commercial and industrial city in southwest Poland.  Classes are taught in English by a combination of Franklin and European professors from WSB and other institutions. Dr. Tomas Parks, Dean of Franklin’s College of Business, along with Dr. Brenda Jones, Program Chair at the College of Business, traveled to Poland to kick off the program’s first MBA cohort in November 2009.

“The students we met were excited for the opportunity to learn an American perspective on business,” Dr. Parks said.  “In addition to the benefits of teaching students in Poland is the opportunity to bring back lessons learned from Polish students and our counterpart professors for inclusion in our own curriculum development, furthering our students’ development as participants in a global economy.”

Franklin University - Global Education Strategy
Universities large and small have felt the growing influence of operating in the world market. Franklin is redefining the term ‘global’ in terms of educational access, academic quality, and sustainability.  Just over a year ago, the University decided on a strategy to increase its global presence that differs from the traditional approach of recruiting foreign students to U.S. campuses and study abroad programs. Franklin’s leadership targeted long-term partnerships with foreign universities interested in supplementing their own programs with an English-language MBA.

“We’ve discovered that these institutions find that collaborating with Franklin is more effective than launching programs on their own,” said Klaus Haberich, Senior Vice President for Planning and Global Programs.  “Many foreign colleges are interested in partnerships such as these to utilize our expertise in business programs and to supplement their own MBA or undergraduate offerings with an English-language program,” Haberich said.  “The signing of these agreements allows Franklin, an institution known for its expertise in providing access to career-relevant education, to strengthen its position as an exporter of high-value-added educational services, which benefits both the Ohio and national economy.”

Franklin’s approach is already showing success.  Since launching its global strategy with the signing of an agreement with the Wroclaw School of Banking in Poland in October 2008, Franklin has entered into five other partnership agreements with the following institutions:

Bitola, Macedonia: University of St.Kliment Ohridski
Mangalagangotri, India:  Mangalore University 
Chengdu, China: Sichuan University
Bratislava, Slovakia: University of Economics in Bratislava 
Hanoi, Vietnam: Vietnam National University

About the Wroclaw School of Banking
WSB was founded after the fall of communism with the mission of preparing a new generation of specialists in finance and banking needed to assist in Poland’s transformation to a market economy.   The institution has since expanded to include a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs in professional areas.  WSB is located in Wroclaw, a thriving city which is the economic and cultural center of the Lower Silesia region of Poland.   For more information, visit www.wsb.pl.

About Franklin University

Founded in 1902, Franklin University is central Ohio’s leading and most experienced educator of adult students. Annually, more than 11,000 students attend Franklin, on campus at its Main Campus in downtown Columbus, Ohio, three central Ohio locations, and at its newest location in Indianapolis, Indiana, in addition to online. Franklin offers 25 undergraduate majorsas well as three graduate programs, and graduates more than 1,500 students annually. The University’s MBA Program is offered internationally through agreements with institutions in Europe and the Far East.  Further information regarding Franklin University can be found at www.franklin.edu