Skip to main content
Intellect

U.S. Department of Education gives BYU $1.4 million grant for international business education

The U.S. Department of Education awarded Brigham Young University a four-year grant worth $1.4 million to continue its work as a Center for International Business Education and Research. The grant allows BYU to work with other centers across the nation to improve international business and language courses.

Brooke Derr, executive director of the Marriott School’s Global Management Center, spent last summer drafting the proposal with help from center staffers and BYU associate professor Kristie Seawright. According to Derr, some of the key factors in winning the grant include an extensive offering of business language courses, BYU’s geographic location and several proposed programs.

BYU offers 11 upper-level business language courses that place the school at the head of the nation in this category. In an effort to stay on the cutting edge, BYU is working with Michigan State University and the University of Texas at Austin to develop courses in Turkish and Arabic.

“We want to not only be good at languages, but because we have so many people who have lived abroad, we really want to be good at culture,” Derr said. “We are developing an instrument to measure cultural competency, to demonstrate that students not only speak a language, but will actually be able to effectively conduct business in the a different region of the world.”

The grant also allows BYU to create other programs that could be implemented at schools across the nation. One such program would make BYU a national resource for international business ethics.

Seawright, who drafted portions of the proposal, explained BYU’s role in creating course outlines and materials for the ethics program.

“We have international expertise that many other schools don’t have as well as support from Marriott School administrators to become a center for ethics and for training ethical business managers,” she said. “There are ethical issues that come up in international business settings that don’t come up in domestic business, and we can help other schools identify and teach theses issues.”

More than 30 CIBER schools nationwide work together to help train other colleges and universities about international business issues. This year, more than 100 schools applied for the CIBER status.

Writer: Tyna-Minet Ernst

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Innovative group of BYU students roll out new AI tech to solve parking problems

March 19, 2024
A group of enterprising BYU students aim to significantly — if not entirely — reduce parking violations in paid parking lots, college and otherwise. And their idea, an AI detection and tracking system called Spot Parking (more on that in a minute), just got a major endorsement and $12,000 in cash by winning the 2024 BYU Student Innovator of the Year (SIOY) competition.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Q&A with President Reese on BYU’s undergraduate teaching focus

March 15, 2024
In this Q&A series with President Reese, he shares more about the seven initiatives he shared in his 2023 inaugural response and how they apply to BYU employees.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU math videos aim to transform equations into excitement

March 13, 2024
From calculating the perfect bottle flip to understanding how much force is behind a penny dropped off a skyscraper, Math the World videos creatively answer the age-old math question, “When will I ever use this?”
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=