The FINANCIAL — The statistics provided by R. Michael Cowgill, President of Georgian American University, to The FINANCIAL, show that 70% of Business School graduates are employed by organizations and governmental entities in Georgia.
From third and fourth year bachelor students, over 30% are already employed. Recently GAU has lowered tuition fees from 7,500 GEL to 6,000 GEL for the next year, which has in turn raised demand for places at GAU among new entrants.
GAU was founded in 2005 and has two main faculties: Business and Law schools. In addition to its core faculties GAU offers certificate programmes including GAU Tbilisi PR School, accounting, banking and insurance law, Georgian Bar Exam and UNE preparatory courses.
For the academic year 2010/2011 GAU has a total of 500 spots for new bachelor entrants, 250 spots for law and 250 openings for its business school. This will double the number of first year students. Moreover, the university has Master spots open for 25 students in each of its MBA and LLM programmes.
“We have lowered the tuition fee for two reasons: market conditions in the country still reflect the global economic crisis affecting everybody. I know this both from students and parents. This decrease will be applied to both new entrants and those existing students that are now paying 7,500 GEL,” says R. Michael Cowgill, President of Georgian American University.
“Secondly, one of the reasons we raised our tuition fee last year was to give incoming Bachelor students availability to all text books. At present, we offer our students the ability to check out books from the library. We found out that they would rather make the decision on whether to buy or not buy the books themselves. Due to this fact we took out the cost of the books from the tuition fee,” he adds.
“At present we are concentrating on our career development centre which is how we match graduates with whatever jobs are available. That includes assisting the students in preparing resumes, understanding the interview process and organizing interviews with prospective employers.
Luckily some of our students already have jobs, not only those students who are studying at the Master and PhD levels, but those who are Bachelor students. For our Bachelor students that are already working, we arranged classes in the evening so they could continue to work during the daytime,” says Cowgill.
GAU’s Chancellor worked hard to secure better loan services for its students. “We have two very good student loan programmes with TBC and ProCredit banks. One of the programmes is that you can actually borrow up to 20,000 GEL through the lifetime of your study and (by also deferring the interest payments) not pay back any of the loan until you finish university and get a job – so it is similar to most American student loan programmes,” says Cowgill.
“However, we are definitely counselling students and their parents about the exact terms of the loans and to not get into debt with a loan greater that they can afford.
There are many sad stories of students in the US and Europe getting instant loans and then being unable to pay them off. Although we believe that education is the best investment one can make, we just want to make sure that parents and particularly students understand the terms of the loan(s) and will be able to ultimately pay off the debt when they do graduate and get jobs.”
The details of the student loan programmes can be seen on our website at www.GAU.edu.ge
Q. What are the changes that are planned for the 2010/2011 academic year in study programmes both in the Business and Law Schools of GAU?
A. We are going to better promote our Law School Clinic Programme, where our students get involved in understanding how the real practice of law happens and at the same time help people who are underprivileged and generally unable to pay for legal services.
Our law clinic programme has included people who have some problems with insurance, property title, divorce and many other individual legal issues. These are people who do not have money to go to regular law firms. The Law School Dean, the Clinic Programme Director and I determine which cases are best suited for both the clients and GAU, including ensuring that there are no conflicts of interest with a potential case and any other GAU programmes. The Director of the Clinic and the Dean assign different cases for students. Or course the students are closely mentored by the law professors.
GAU has added Economics in the Business School under the Finance area. This was determined by the demand of our students. Similarly based on requests from our students, we have added an optional programme to obtain international English language certification.
GAU has also added the following certificate courses: Banking and Insurance Law and Consumer Behaviour/Sales and Governmental 2.0 Public Relations (as part of the GAU Tbilisi PR School). We have also added a new certificate course for preparing law school graduates for the Georgian Bar Exam.
Q. Recently GAU underwent the accreditation process, what were the changes that were made during this process?
A. There were some changes required from the Ministry on timing and duration of semesters and also some revisions to the grading criteria.
First of all we had to make sure we adhered to the Bologna Process requirement where for each credit a student must spend a minimum of 25 hours of study (both in class and outside studying). If being a student is like a job, a student should not work for more than 41 hours (in class and studying) in a week for all classes – based on what the labour code requires for a normal job.
So we made the semester longer to make sure students are not required to study more than 41 hours/week.
The Ministry made a mandatory second final exam. If after the first final exam a student has a total semester score between 40-50% of the total grade, they have the right to re-take the final. And moreover, between the first and second finals they should have a minimum of 10 days, so all of these things required our semester to be longer. One problem is that we have a much shorter summer semester of only 6 weeks. In the regulation, students have the right to re-take a class, one they have previously failed or want a better grade in.
According to the new system they only have 10 credits available for the summer, which means you cannot even take two regular 6-credit courses.
The other change was regarding the grading criteria. The Ministry of Education and Science mandated the fail level which applies to all universities. Previously, we had 60% and the Ministry set it for 50% of the total grade.
With the grading criteria, through consultations with the Ministry, we understood that we have some flexibility within the regulations, such as setting standards for GPA calculation and for academic probation. As with any new regulations, it takes time for both sides to understand the practical application of the guidelines.
Q. What are the exchange programmes and internships GAU offers its students?
A. Right now we have business students involved in France with ISCID and we are sending many law students to the programme in Italy in Prato which is with our affiliate in Australia called Monash.
I have just arrived from the US where I had negotiations with American University which is our law school affiliate in Washington D.C. with which we are planning on establishing a dual LLM programme and more formal student exchange.
The other reason for my trip to the US was to meet with our newest affiliate, Clayton State University, located south of Atlanta Georgia. The university has 6,000 students so they are not too large and have a great campus in a smaller city and yet within an hour’s drive of Atlanta.
What is unique is that its tuition is 4,000 USD a year which is much closer to GAU’s tuition of about 3,500 USD per year. Often the problem with affiliates and exchange programmes is that our tuition is so much lower in comparison to theirs.
For summer we are planning to make cultural exchanges both ways with Clayton State and then will have its students arrive here in the autumn and we will send our students in the spring.
Q. At present GAU has students from several countries, what will the activities be that will be offered to international students?
A. We are looking at emphasizing the prestige of GAU for international students. The countries we think are most viable are Iran, China and India. In these countries most students are looking for other places to study that are reasonably inexpensive compared to western countries.
We are putting some interesting packages together for them that include tuition, housing and all books. It is very attractive when you can do it for students for a total cost between 8,000-10,000 USD.
Moreover, as students here study predominantly Georgian law, usually the studies are held in the Georgian language. At present, we have international and comparative law courses in English and we would like to expand the number of courses in English for international students and also for affiliate exchange students who come here to study.
For business the international language is English, so that’s why the Business School courses are already taught in English. So there is no problem for affiliates to study at the Business School.
Q. Which are the universities worldwide that GAU has partnership with?
A. GAU has formal agreements with the following universities, in the USA – American University, Clayton University, in Australia – Monash University.
In India we have partnership with two universities; TAPMI which is a business school university and the University of Manipal. At present we are having ongoing discussions with the University of Kent in the UK and we are actively seeking a German university affiliate.
I think it is important to note that we have made a strategic decision to focus on a smaller number of excellent and compatible affiliates rather than just try and add numbers of affiliates to make our website look better.
Q. What are the unique characteristics that distinguish GAU from other universities?
A. One of the things that actually makes us different from other universities is our western style of education and management. We are focusing on who are GAU’s clients. For example, even though students (and their parents) pay money to GAU, our clients and whose needs must be met are really those firms and organizations that hire our students and graduates. That is why we have emphasized our External Advisory Board to help us understand what they require of our graduates.
The other thing we differ is the practical aspect of the education at GAU. We want students to be able to go into the workforce with a better understanding of what they should be doing rather than taking a year or two for on the job training. That is critically important in this economic climate.
Q. GAU was the winner of Golden Brand 2008, what influence did this award have on the university?
A. The Golden Brand was great recognition for us. We kept hearing about our popularity and our enrolment and employment statistics seemed to reflect that. However the Golden Brands award just confirmed that our clients (the organizations that hire our students) also realized GAU’s success.
For us the ongoing challenge is to ensure that the quality of our educational programmes continues to support that popularity. We have worked diligently and are very fortunate to be in great shape financially. That allows us the stability to focus on improving quality and not worrying about just filling classrooms with students.
Q. Do GAU students have some discount for tuition fees?
A. We have some discounts for the students who come from the same family, for children of a lecturer and staff members, and discounts for IDPs, for those families who have been affected by the August War 2008. We also have scholarships for current students based on their academic performance.
Q. What is a student’s life at the university like? What are the activities conducted by Student Self Governance?
A. Our students are actively involved in student projects, competitions and a variety of extracurricular activities available to them at GAU. At present they are actively participating in the Student Business Olympiad and preparing for the Eastern European Moot Court Competition.
Student Self Governance is working really well at GAU. We have allocated a budget and then they decide how to spend that money, whether on social events, charity events, internal or external – that’s all up to the decision of Student Self Governance.
Usually at least once a week, the elected representatives of self governance come in and talk to me about the ideas they have. Of course, we counsel and mentor the students as sometimes there are more efficient ways to get things done. However, ultimately the decision is up to them.
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