MIT-SKKU: MIT Sloan and the School of Business of Sungkyunkwan University

In September 2003, MIT Sloan and the School of Business of Sungkyunkwan University (SKK) in Seoul, Korea, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to establish a new MBA program at SKK School of Business. The objective is to develop the new program into the best MBA program in Korea and in Asia, and among the top 100 MBA programs in the world by 2010. Graduates are expected to become business leaders in Asia.

The collaboration, which is focused on faculty development, began in January 2004 when an SKK faculty member came to MIT Sloan for five months of training. Over the next eight years, a total of forty SKK faculty -- five each year -- will spend five months at MIT Sloan. At the same time, MIT Sloan faculty will offer seminars, workshops, and other educational activities at SKK.

The official and everyday language of the new MBA program will be English. This includes lectures, classroom discussions, and homework, and all conversation inside the new MBA building now under construction on the SKK Humanities and Social Sciences campus in Seoul.

The new program opened its doors in fall 2004 to a charter class of forty students recruited from Korea's top universities and top employers, including Samsung Group and its subsidiaries. Samsung, through its Samsung Foundation, is the lead sponsor of the new MBA program. As the program's campus expands (a second new building is planned), classes will grow to one hundred, and the faculty -- all new hires chosen for their teaching and research excellence in MBA programs around the world -- will grow from ten to forty.

The new school's dean is Robert Klemkosky, Professor of Finance at Kelley School of Business at the University of Indiana. He has taught at the SKK School of Business, is a long-time colleague of some of its faculty, and has been involved in student exchanges between Kelley and SKK. Klemkosky moved to Seoul in January 2004 and will teach one course each semester.