Visit of Dean Bishbishy, Dr. Gamal Shehata and Dr. Wael Kortam

Date January 25, 2012 to February 2, 2012

The visitors, Dean Bishbishy, Dr. Gamal Shehata and Dr. Wael Kortam met with Dean Huss, Dr. Bijan Fazlollahi and the department heads of marketing and finance and discussed outstanding issues as well as the request from FCCU to help with establishing a MBA degree. Later they also met with the six visiting faculty members from Cairo University, Dr. Bassant Elsharawy, Dr. Ahmed Elbayoumi, Dr. Mostafa Elmaraksh, Dr. Mohamed Hassan, Dr. Tamer Elsharnouby and Dr. Gamal Abdelwaha, who are currently undergoing faculty development program in Atlanta. During their visit they also got a chance to meet with the heads and faculty of various departments. They also met with three RCB faculty members who will teach in Cairo starting February 25.

Next, they met with Assistant Dean of Recruiting at student services at GSU, Mr. Toby McChesney. In this meeting they got to know about the RCB MBA students’ recruitment, MBA programs and numbers of students, complaints from the students, staff structure along with discussing the Cairo University’s programs and undergraduate partnership.

Later that day, they met with Mr. Bernard Meineke, Director of Small Business Development Center and discussed their plans for an entrepreneurship development center. Cairo University, also suggested about drafting a discussion document outlining a possible relationship with the GSU SBDC seeking assistance in SBDC systems for client intake, recording of activity, and gathering outcome/impact data; procedures and training for individuals providing consulting and advisement to entrepreneurs and sharing RCB’s experience and content with short course training programs for entrepreneurs.

They met with Ms. Jenifer Shockely, Assistant Director Office of External Affairs. From her they got to know about an overview of the activities, review of materials and events produced news coverage that we have produced regarding the Cairo partnership, of the Office of Communications and Marketing. Cairo faculty also expressed their interest in getting the news release about the first graduating class in the summer of 2012. The visiting team also met with Director of Career Management center, Mr. Jason Aldrich. In the meeting they discussed marketing the events in career fairs, structuring internships and conducting, implementing and reporting salary surveys.

Over the meeting with Ms. Maury Kalnitz, Director of Professional Doctorate, they discussed the demographics of RCB’s EDB classes, recruiting system and strategy, how and why RCB started and designed an executive program. They also discussed about the newly formed Executive DBA Council. She also suggested that they can apply for the membership. Alongside they discussed the need to recruit apt faculty to teach and supervise dissertations in the EDB program.

In their meeting with Dr. Laura Crawley, Director-Executive MBA Program, and Dr. Dave Forquer, Assistant Dean for executive programs, they discussed competition among EMBA programs, recruiting faculty to teach in the EMBA program and other program demographics (entrance requirements, application process, and student demographics).

On Wednesday, February 1st, 2012, they again had a meeting with Dean Huss and Dr. Bijan Fazlollahi, in which both the parties agreed and signed an elaboration of the Memorandum of cooperation between Georgia State University and Cairo University regarding a MBA program at FCCU.

Dr. Shehata met with Dr. Bijan Fazlollahi and Dr. Afag Fazlollahi and reviewed the business communication course to be taught by Dr. Afag, during her visit. They also planned the meeting of the sustainability committee to review the preparation of post-grant business plan by Dr. Shehata.