THIS FALL, HERAT UNIVERSITY, Afghanistan’s second largest university, will
launch a new MBA program, under the mentorship of the Daniels College
of Business at the University of Denver (DU) in Colorado. The program’s
development is supported by a grant from the United States Agency for
International Development.
As part of the partnership, DU faculty will mentor Herat faculty to
teach in both online and face-to-face environments, to design an MBA
curriculum that will increase the leadership capacity and employability
of Afghan citizens. Once the program is up and running, Herat faculty will
deliver all face-to-face teaching, with some video lectures provided by
Daniels faculty.
The program’s coordinators plan to create cases and projects suited to
the local context, says Brent Chrite, dean of Daniels College. “The primary
difficulty,” he says, “is that there’s not a culture of financial transparency
and disclosure, so we expect companies to be reluctant to provide access
to the information required for a meaningful case analysis.” To create
these cases, the school will work with leaders in Afghanistan’s emerging
private sector and government ministries, many of whom are eager to
engage with academia, Chrite says.
Chrite has helped develop similar programs for other Afghan institutions
previously in his career, including Kabul University and Balkh University.
However, at that time, the U.S. State Department was still allowing
travel to the country. Today, all travel to Afghanistan from the U.S. is restricted
because of safety concerns. For that reason, in January faculty from
both institutions traveled to Mumbai, India, for a face-to-face meeting.
“Afghanistan is one of the most difficult places on the planet, with profound
structural, political, economic, and cultural challenges that must
be addressed,” Chrite says. “We believe in the power of the private sector
as an essential catalyst for capacity building in other organizations, and
business schools have unique capabilities in this arena.”