Malaspina takes on students from suspended Capilano program

Six students from Capilano College’s McRae Institute of International Management will be attending Malaspina this year.

Low enrolment in Capilano College’s McRae Institute of International Management Graduate Program has resulted in the suspension of courses for first year students. McRae has worked with the program candidates to find places for them to study at the graduate level, with six of them electing to attend Malaspina.

“The program at Capilano has been successfully running for twenty years, but when they had to suspend the upcoming semester’s program because of low enrolment, we thought it might be a nice fit if those students came to Malaspina,” said Brock Dykeman, Director of Malaspina’s MBA program.

The suspended McRae program has been very successful in the last twenty years, with hundreds of graduates working around the world. The program is designed to prepare students to excel in business, non-profit and government sectors. Students choose to major either in the Asia Pacific region or the Latin American region. In this two-year program, students work in a rigorous and interactive environment on international and intercultural management projects.

Six students will be coming to Malaspina from Capilano. These students were offered enrolment in Malaspina’s joint MBA/Master of Science in International Business program or one of several post-graduate diploma programs. Both schools felt this was an acceptable solution that would satisfy the affected students.

“We’re happy to cooperate with Capilano in this way,” said Dykeman. “Their program is excellent and has a strong international emphasis, which makes the transition to Malaspina a natural one. Our MBA/MScIB program with the University of Hertfordshire in the UK also has a strong international emphasis that ensures students are given the opportunity to develop the global mindset so necessary for modern business people.”

“We know and respect Malaspina’s programs and recommended them to some of the students who enrolled for first-year studies in our programs,” said Lorne Braun, McRae’s internal chair. “We see this recent turn of events as an opportunity to build upon and strengthen our relationship with Malaspina.”

The McRae Institute program was officially cancelled on August 13 when enrolment numbers were not what they were in previous years. While that was a disappointment, Braun is confident the program will bounce back.

“There is a need for programs like ours,” he said. “We have interest from people around the world, so we are analyzing the enrolment issues and we will decide how best to move forward. We appreciate the support from Malaspina administration. This whole scenario has been a great continuation of our relationship with them.”