Report on Travel to Toulouse and Grenoble, France, January and March 2000

Alexis Koster

Professor of Information and Decision Systems

Introduction

In the framework of my Fall 1999 proposal, I traveled to Grenoble January 17 to 21, 2000; to Toulouse, January 21to 24, 2000; and again to Toulouse March 10 to 14. The main goal of this trip was to reinforce the existing exchange agreement between ESC-Toulouse (Toulouse Business School) and SDSU in the following ways:

· Discuss a more flexible student program at ESC-Toulouse, which would allow

ESC-Toulouse students to come to SDSU in the Fall Semester as well as the Spring

Semester. Because ESC-Toulouse has a quarter system, students coming in the Spring Semester cannot stay the full semester, which obviously causes difficult problems for class registration

· Include in this agreement ESC-Grenoble (Grenoble Business School) in order to provide a better balance between exchange students: ESC-Grenoble is interested in sending their students to the Barcelona campus of ESC-Toulouse, and we expect Grenoble to be a popular destination for SDSU students

· Study the possibility of a dual degree program in which ESC-Toulouse has much interest.

· Encourage the two schools to join together to submit an entry to the SDSU International Business Plan Competition.

Meetings in Grenoble

I had numerous meetings at ESC- Grenoble between January 17 and January 21, 2000. I met the following persons: Jean-Paul Leonard, President of Group ESC-Grenoble, Professor Jolly, Management, Schlenker, Information Systems, Humbert, Information Systems, Therin, Entrepreneurship, Grange, Director of International Programs.

They all showed strong interest in a collaboration between the three schools and agreed in principle in student exchanges and Faculty exchanges (a few faculty members speak English well enough to be able to teach in the USA; other ones would be interested in coming to SDSU for research purpose).

Meetings in Toulouse

I had meetings at ESC- Toulouse January 21to 24, 2000; and again March 10 to 14. I met the school director Andres Atenza, the dean Dennis Lacoste (who had spent a sabbatical semester at SDSU a few years before), the new president of the group ESC-Toulouse, Herve Passeron, the Director of International Programs William McNulty, and many faculty members: Rousselot in Finance/accounting, Serge Baille, Information Systems,

Cardona, Information Systems, Galy, Information Systems, Guthrie, Information Systems among others.

They all favor an increase in the level of exchange at the student and a the faculty level. They are all interested in participating in the SDSU International Business Competition. Professor Guthrie is Australian. We discussed the possibility of an exchange in our teaching for a semester. However, with the new President, a new dean, and a new school director, they are mostly concerned with an on-going school reorganization. When this process is completed, they think that they will concentrate more on this and other exchange programs.

Current Status

The student exchange program is continuing between ESC-Toulouse and SDSU. To this day, SDSU has sent 5 students to Toulouse (including 2 in Spring 2001) and ESC-Toulouse 4 students to SDSU (but before my visit). However the student exchange is not at the level we would like it to be. The rigidity of the program schedule at ESC-Toulouse has not been resolved yet. ESC-Grenoble and ESC-Toulouse have not yet moved toward an association for the purpose of student exchange.

Both schools have shown interest in the SDSU International Business Plan Competition: I got several email messages from Professors Therin of ESC-Grenoble and Rousselot of ESC-Toulouse asking information about it, but none of them submitted an entry for the 2001 competition.

The dual degree program at the graduate level seems to have lost of its interest for the new President and the new dean of ESC-Toulouse. My past experience is that it would very difficult to have it approved by SDSU. It is currently on the backburner.

Just after my March 2000 visit to ESC-Toulouse, Herve Passeron, the President of the Group ESC-Toulouse came to San Diego for a meeting of the AACSB. He came to visit SDSU (his schedule permitted it during the weekend only, and he was not able to meet other faculty and administrators). He was very impressed by our campus and indicated his desire to increase our level of exchange. Professor Rousselot from ESC-Toulouse spent the summer of 2000 at SDSU, conducting research for himself and discussing research cooperation with Finance faculty. He has standing invitations for Finance faculty to teach short finance courses at ESC-Toulouse.