A Keokuk, Iowa USA firm announces the opening of a free online degree school search. The Free search is a milestone which owner Keith Londrie II wanted to accomplish in 2008. The search can be accessed at http://best-online-degree-schools.com and is available to any prospective online student.

The website has only been online approximately 2 weeks, and we are up to 201 searches per day and have increased capacity to handle hundreds of thousands of searches per day. Reaching the goal of 200 searches was completed in just 2 weeks. The secondary goal is to reach 100,000 searches by the end of 2008.

Keith Londrie says “With the amount of promotion we are doing for this free search service for online degrees, we should reach the goal of 100,000 searches by the end of 2008″.

The orange search box stands out vividly when you get to the site and look for where to do your search. The database of schools is the largest I have seen. You are virtually guaranteed to find a school that meets your expectations.

Keith Londrie said, “With the price of gasoline going up so much it is important to cut costs anywhere possible. The most logical place to start is with college transportation. Choose to learn online and save money while doing it”.

Source : webwire.com

Walk through the halls of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business during the school year, and along with students cramming facts for macroeconomics and operating strategy you may encounter some students stretching their bodies and doing something really unusual for business school students: relaxing.

They’re members of Chicago’s yoga club, a student group founded earlier this year by two GSB students and which last term attracted 15 to 35 regular attendees to classes in the school’s Harper Center. The classes are “time to shut your brain off,” says Jody Kirchner, one of the group’s founders.

The Chicago GSB yoga classes reflect a growing popularity of yoga in the U.S., with about 16 million Americans engaging in the practice, according to statistics released by Yoga Journal. The publication said $5.7 billion is spent annually on yoga classes and products, nearly twice as much as four years ago.
Indian Odyssey

During a school-sponsored trip to India last year, Kirchner and fellow student Doug Neal bonded over a mutual interest in yoga. Kirchner and Neal, who both had been practicing yoga for years before they met, eventually decided to start a group dedicated to the practice on campus—after Kirchner noticed that other business schools had yoga groups, but Chicago didn’t.

In midyear, Neal, a 2008 MBA graduate, and Kirchner, a rising second-year student and co-chair of the club, conducted an interest survey for the group. Of the 1,100 students attending the school, about 200 expressed interest.

Kirchner said she was surprised at the large response the survey garnered, finding that a sizable portion of the student population already practiced yoga, at least to some extent. “People I know outside of school say the same thing,” she said. “After a stressful day, it’s time they can do something easily to take their mind off their stress.”

Neal says yoga isn’t just for stress relief. “Yoga is very multifaceted, and the benefits of yoga are different for each person,” he said. “Some use it for exercise, for meditation poses, some for relaxation, some for injuries.”

University at Albany-SUNY students in the evening and weekend MBA programs are in Budapest this week as they visit seven companies there and immerse themselves in Hungarian business, history and culture.

The School of Business entourage includes two dozen students, retired Dean Paul Leonard, and several faculty and staff. New School of Business Dean Donald Siegel popped in for a visit last weekend.

In the evenings, the future MBAs take an international business class with Professor Yasha Crnkovic.

The Malaysian Institute of Integrity (IIM) will conduct a study to determine the level of perception of the people on a number of indexes.

The indexes are corruption; the quality of public service delivery; business ethics and social obligations; the stability of the family institution and community; the quality of life and community welfare; and also about people’s courteousness.

The study which began Tuesday and will run until Aug 31 is called ‘The National Integrity Perception Index Research Report 2008′.

“The study is aimed at evaluating the integrity perception level among Malaysians after four years of implementation of the National Integrity Plan. It is a mechanism of measurement to determine Malaysians’ perception of integrity given the country’s culture and situation,” IIM president Datuk Dr Mohd Tap Salleh said in a statement Tuesday.

He said the study, through questionnaires and personal interviews and involving 20,000 respondents, will use the services of 500 researchers or ‘enumerators’ who will have special passes issued by the Statistics Department.

Source : bernama.com.my

Leading business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Genpact has roped in professors from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow to give its employees lessons in management skills and improving productivity.

Through electronically enabled interactive sessions, workers at Genpact’s operation hubs in Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Jaipur will learn the finer nuances of management, soft skills and strategic planning from senior professors of the business school.

This is an e-certificate programme in general management (e-CPGM) and there are 119 participants, most of whom have worked for one to three years.

“The objective of this programme is to develop managerial capabilities among people who are at the early stages of their career to enable them to effectively undertake managerial responsibilities,” said Ajay Singh, course director of IIM Lucknow.

The programme is divided into 12 modules. Keeping in mind the requirements of the industry, the modules are designed to create managerial and leadership competence among the professionals. There are 120 hours of e-enabled interactive sessions.

Singh said the programme was being run from IIM Lucknow’s Noida campus, which was being developed as a centre of excellence in the area of executive education.

The India headquartered Genpact operates service delivery centres in India, China, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and the US.

A report has suggested that it is likely that British students considering taking MBA courses in the UK will find it increasingly hard to find loans to cover the cost of their post-graduate studies.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the appeal of MBA courses in the US had recently been increasing among British students, thanks to the weak dollar.

However, the paper has now learnt that the credit crunch has dramatically reduced the number of student loans available for those considering such post-graduate courses.

It pointed to research carried out by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators that showed that 50 lenders have suspended their post-graduate student loan deals.

“The cost of loan repayment is particularly high for students from outside the US who apply for loans from US institutions,” the paper explained.

“This is because credit references are not required and also the lenders find it harder to track down students on graduation if they return to their home countries.”

As a result, a British student looking for a post-graduate student loan in the US can expect to have to pay interest of around seven per cent.

With US MBA courses typically costing around $150,000 (£75,000) to complete, the rising price of loans could put many British students off, even though they know they will be able to secure high-paying jobs after graduation.

Source : gaapweb.com

Aaron F. Cooper II, a self-described worrywart, never thought his penchant for devising foolproof backup plans could translate into a calling. But that all changed when he signed up for an elective in risk management while at the University of Georgia’s Terry School of Business executive MBA program last fall. “It entails pretty much everything I’ve always been interested in my entire life, even before I knew risk management existed,” said Cooper, 27, a telecommunications engineer at AT&T (T).

Cooper is part of a new wave of students hitting business school campuses. For years, risk management—the process of analyzing exposure to risk and determining how best to handle it—occupied a sleepy corner in business schools, a subject mainly of interest to those who want to enter the insurance field. But with the recent turmoil in the financial markets and a push for more accountability, risk management has rocketed in status at business schools.

In the past decade, a growing number of B-schools have added concentrations in the subject, ramping up the number of classes they offer. Executive MBA programs are also incorporating risk management electives into their curriculum, responding to increased demand from executives and companies. In some instances, schools such as Georgia’s Terry are developing custom programs on the topic for top executives and boards of directors.

More : businessweek.com

Suryadatta Institution, Pune offers MBA courses to graduates, and professionals. Fresh graduates can pursue MBA through Suryadatta admission test (SAT).

Suryadatta Institute of Business Management and Technology (SIBMT) offers two years full time PGDM in Retail + FMCG, Telecom + IT and Services + IT Enabled Services.

Suryadatta Institute Of Management and Mass Communication (SIMMC), offers two years full time PGDM in Marketing + International Business (IB), Human Resource + International Business (IB), Finance + Marketing, Marketing + Information Technology (IT), International Business + Information Technology (IT).

Suryadatta Education Foundation’s Suryadatta institutes are offering management education since 2000. The contemporary education backed by industry training and overall development is the key factor of Suryadatta students who are trained in simulated environment and fine-tuned in accordance to the requirements of present corporate world, says a press note.

More : navhindtimes.com

There were 22 MBA Vietnamese graduates and eight BA Vietnamese graduates in these first classes receiving the degrees of the University of Bolton. The degrees are recognized by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Deborah Clarke, British consul general in HCMC, said there would be plenty of opportunities for Vietnamese graduates as Vietnam’s economic success and integration into the global economy is fuelling demand for well-educated managers who are able to operate in a global market-place.

She added education is one of the five key pillars of the UK’s relationship with Vietnam and that the collaborative partnership between the two universities will help to create a critical mass of skilled professionals with an international outlook in Vietnam as well as further strengthen educational links between the UK and Vietnam and promote understanding between the two countries.

Working in partnership with HCMC University of Banking, the University of Bolton has delivered the programs in HCMC since 2006. The programs include Bachelor of Accounting, Bachelor of Business Administration, and transfer program for Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Business Administration.

An enrolment seminar for these programs will be held at 8:30 a.m. on July 19 at Kim Do Hotel, 133 Nguyen Hue Boulevard, District 1, HCMC. For details, contact the Center for International Cooperation of the HCMC University of Banking (2nd floor, 39 Ham Nghi Boulevard, District 1, tel: (08) 821 4660, ext: 101).

More : english.vietnamnet.vn

AS A PhD student at Oxford University, Cleo Choong spent most of her waking hours at the lab, researching ways to help heal damaged bones with biodegradable material.

When she returned to Singapore, the bioengineering graduate wanted to market her work, but didn’t know where to start.

‘I was lacking skills in areas like finance and management,’ said Dr Choong, 29.

So, she enrolled in the executive MBA programme at at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in July 2007.

Dr Choong represents a new breed of student that the university’s Nanyang Business School is trying to attract.

Spring Singapore chairman Philip Yeo, who helms the school’s advisory board, said that many fresh graduates in science and engineering had a strong technical grounding.

However, they lacked equally important skills in other areas, such as training, managing and retaining staff, for example.

‘We want future technical people to become CEOs of start-ups,’ he said, calling MBA training a necessity, not a luxury.

More : straitstimes.com