Thunderbird, The American Graduate School
of International Management
Master's Program in International Management
Glendale, Arizona 85306
Overview
Thunderbird is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and by the AACSB–The International Association for Management Education. A private, nonprofit institution, it is the oldest graduate management school in the United States devoted exclusively to the education of college graduates for international careers.
The positions Thunderbird students enter after graduation are as diverse as their backgrounds. However, whether they choose careers in consulting, finance, marketing, informational technology, or project management, their responsibilities are most often global in nature. Thunderbird graduates are sought after in a wide range of industries, including technology, telecommunications, energy, banking and finance, health care and pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and consulting. Top employers include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Citigroup, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Enron, Hershey Hilti, IBM, Intel, and Texaco.
The Community
Thunderbird is located in the cosmopolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona, where the superb weather draws visitors from all over the world to enjoy outdoor recreational activities. The Grand Canyon is 5 hours north by car; Mexico is 4 hours south.
The current enrollment is 1,337. The average age of students is 28, with most having significant work and international exposure.
The academic experience is enhanced by the cultural diversity represented in a student body where more than seventy countries are represented. Sixty-four percent of the students are international students; 32 percent are women.
Programs of study and degree requirements
Thunderbird provides preparation for international management careers. The Master of International Management (M.I.M.) is awarded upon successful completion of prescribed courses, requirements, and electives. Program length is four trimesters.
Instruction is in three interrelated areas: world business, international studies, and modern languages. The curriculum provides a practical knowledge of business management skills and concepts; an understanding of the social, political, historical, and cultural natures of various parts of the world; and business communication proficiency in a second language—Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, or Russian. Students choose a language and a regional focus as part of a 30-hour core program, then are required to select a specialization in country risk and business intelligence, entrepreneurship, finance, global management, marketing, or technology management.
Dual degrees are offered with Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, the University of Colorado at Denver, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Florida, Fordham University, Virginia Tech, Michigan State University, University of Houston, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Study-abroad programs are offered in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. A Japan Center is located in Tokyo and a European campus is in Archamps, France, 10 kilometers from Geneva.
Students may also choose the Thunderbird Europe option—entering the M.I.M. program in Archamps, France, at the Thunderbird Europe French-Geneva Center, but completing the degree at the U.S. campus in Glendale.
Facilities & Resources
Library and research facilities are centralized in the Merle A. Hinrichs International Business Information Centre, a 31,000-square-foot building housing library collections, multimedia facilities, extensive video and teleconferencing capabilities, and multiple online resources. Remote and distributed access to resources is available.
The Barton Kyle Yount Centre is a high-tech communications center, complete with multimedia classrooms, distance learning facilities, and video production studios.
The Joan and David Lincoln Computer Services Center supports both academic and administrative requirements. The student computing laboratories allow access to a wide range of applications, ranging from sophisticated models of futures trading and international banking to word processing and spreadsheet/database development.
Expenses and Aid
Tuition and fees are $18,000 per trimester. Books and instructional materials should not exceed $700 per semester. All students are required to furnish their own laptop computers.
Financial Aid: The Office of Financial Aid manages financial assistance for qualified persons in the following areas: processing federal loan funds for students; placing a limited number of students and spouses in part-time campus employment; and assisting in off-campus student employment.
Assistantships and scholarships based on merit are available to new students. Grants based on a combination of need and merit are available to continuing students.
Housing/Living Expenses: On-campus room and board costs for a single person, single occupancy, totaled $6900 for two trimesters of study. Off-campus costs were slightly higher.
How to Apply
Students may enter in the fall, spring, or summer terms. Complete application files include GMAT scores, TOEFL scores from nonnative English speakers, official transcripts from undergraduate and graduate institutions, a personal essay, and three letters of reference; all documents must be received for review six months before the desired entrance date. The minimum TOEFL score for consideration is 600.
Who to Contact
Dean of Admissions
Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of
International Management
15249 North 59th Avenue
Glendale, Arizona 85306
Telephone: 602-978-7210
E-mail: tbird@t-bird.edu
THE FACULTY AND THEIR RESEARCH
International Studies
Glenn R. Fong, Associate Professor of International Studies; Ph.D., Cornell. Ameritech Research Fellow, University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs; Advanced International Research Fellow, Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies; Consultant, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment; Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University; Author, Export Dependence Versus the New Protectionism: Trade Policy in the Industrial World, Federal Support for Industrial Technology: Lessons from the VHSIC and VLSI Programs; Articles in The Political Economy of Defense: Issues & Implications and Comparative Politics.
Llewellyn D. Howell, Professor and Department Chairman; Ph.D., Syracuse. Fulbright Scholar, National Institute of Public Administration, Malaysia; International Affairs Editor, USA Today Magazine; Coeditor, International Education: The Unfinished Agenda and Malaysian Foreign Policy: Issues and Perspectives; Editor, International Studies Notes; Author, Papers on Political Risk Analysis; articles in International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Asian Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, International Interactions, and others.
Robert T. Moran, Professor; Ph.D., Minnesota. Coauthor, Managing Cultural Differences, Managing Cultural Synergy, and Dynamics of Successful International Business Negotiations; Author, So You're Going Abroad; Are You Prepared?, Getting Your Yen's Worth: How to Negotiate with Japan, Inc., Venturing Abroad in Asia, and International Management's Cultural Guide to Europe; Senior Editor, Global Business Management for the 1990's.
Karen S. Walch, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Wisconsin. Senior Researcher and Writer for UW–Madison International Studies and Programs' Studies in Conflict Resolution Series; Author, "International Approaches to Dispute Resolution in International Business" in Global Business Management in the 1990s; "Caribbean Basin/U.S. Public and Private Sector Dialogue and Problem Solving Processes" in Caribbean Affairs; and "In Search of Caribbean Basin `Sociocentric' Self Interest" in Caribbean Basin New Pathways; Editor, "International Conflict Cases in Central America" in Community and Change.
Yahia H. Zoubir, Associate Professor of International Studies; Ph.D., American. Former Assistant Professor, The American University, The American College of Switzerland, and the American Graduate School of Business; Coeditor and main contributor, International Dimensions of the Western Sahara Conflict; Articles in Journal of Third World Studies, Canadian Journal of History, The Middle East Journal, Arab Studies Quarterly, and others.
Modern Languages
Andrew C. Chang, Professor of Chinese and Japanese; M.A., Seton Hall. Master translator, Taiwan Telecommunications Administration; Specialist, Tourism Council, Republic of China; Author, A Handbook of Business Writings in Japanese and A Thesaurus of Japanese Mimesis and Onomatopoeia.
Leon F. Kenman, Associate Professor of English as a Second Language; Ph.D., USC. Acting Head of the Department of Slavonic and Oriental Studies, University of Victoria, Canada; Author, Oral English Lessons for Lao Speakers: Dialogs and Drills; Coauthor, English for Lao Speakers; Vocabulary, Conversational and Written English.
Kay Lewis Mittnik, Assistant Professor of German; Ph.D., Rice. Conference translator for Austrian Ministries of Finance and Education, IAEA, UNIDO, and other UN organizations; Austrian government grantee.
J. Donovan Penrose, Associate Professor of German; M.B.A., Washington (Seattle); Ph.D., Stanford. Training Instructor of German, Defense Language Institute. Instructor, Universität Tübingen (Germany).
Walter Vladimir Tuman, Associate Professor of Russian; Ph.D., Georgetown. Director, Foreign Language Laboratory, Louisiana State University; Education Specialist, Defense Language Institute; Coeditor, Computer-Aided Language Learning Bibliography.
Jorge Valdivieso, Professor of Spanish; Ph.D., Arizona State. Legal Advisor, Government of Ecuador; Consul of Ecuador for Arizona; Coauthor, Negocios y communicaciones, Studia Hispanico Medievalia.
Carmen Vega-Carney, Associate Professor of Spanish; Ph.D., Iowa; postdoctoral fellow, Harvard, Oxford; NEH postdoctoral fellowships, Yale, Texas at Austin, Arizona State.
World Business
Kenneth R. Ferris, Distinguished Professor of World Business; Ph.D., Ohio State. Editor, Behavioral Research in Accounting Journal and How to Understand Financial Statements. Author, Financial Accounting and Corporate Reporting: A Casebook; Coauthor, Corporate Financial Reporting and Financial Accounting and Reporting.
Mark Griffiths, Associate Professor of Finance; Ph.D., Western Ontario. Author/coauthor of articles in: Journal of Financial Economics, The Global Finance Journal, Financial Review, International Journal of Markets, Institutions and Money, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Journal of Financial Services, and others.
Robert E. Grosse, Professor of International Business and Department Chairman; Ph.D., North Carolina. Author, Foreign Exchange Black Markets in Latin America; Technology Transfer in Services to Latin America; Multinationals in Latin America; Editor and Coauthor, Private Sector Solutions to the Latin American Debt Crises.
Roy A. Herberger Jr., Professor and President; Ph.D., Colorado. Chairman, Arizona Joint Legislative Study Committee on International Trade; Chairman, International Committee, Greater Phoenix Economic Council; Member, American Management Association International Council; Member, Board of Directors, International Affairs Committee, and Strategic Issues Committee, American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business.
F. John Mathis, Professor and Director of Thunderbird International Banking Institute; Ph.D., Iowa. Director, First Arizona Savings and Loan; Senior Portfolio Officer, International Finance Corporation; Senior Financial Policy Analyst, the World Bank; Chief International Economist, Continental Illinois National Bank; Vice President and International Economist, Chase Manhattan Bank; Author, Offshore Lending by U.S. Commercial Banks; Coauthor, Prime Cash: First Steps in Treasury Management.
James Mills, Professor of International Finance and Banking; Director, Thunderbird International Banking Institute; Ph.D., Oregon. Coauthor, Prime Cash: First Steps in Treasury Management.
Michael Moffett, Associate Professor of Finance; Ph.D., Colorado at Boulder. Editorial Board Member, Management International Review and Global Finance. Coauthor, Multinational Business Finance (eighth edition), International Business (fifth edition), and Global Business (second edition); Author of articles in: Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting, Journal of International Money and Finance, and others.
John O'Connell, C. V. Starr Professor of Insurance; Ph.D., Ohio State. Commercial Multiline Underwriter, Unigard Insurance Group; CPCU-Charter Property and Casualty Underwriter; ARM-Associate in Risk Management; AAI-accredited Advisor in Insurance.
Kannan Ramaswamy, Associate Professor of Management; Ph.D., Virginia Tech. Senior Consultant, SAM Consultancy Services, India. Author/coauthor of articles in: Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of International Management, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Education for Business, and other refereed journals of management.
Caren Siehl, Associate Professor of Management; Ph.D., Stanford. IBM Corporation: marketing and executive education; Editorial Board Member, Administrative Science Quarterly, Human Resource Management Journal, and Strategic Management Journal; Author, Joint Ventures and Other Alliances: Creating a Successful Cooperative Linkage; Consultant with Arco, IBM, Ford Motor Company, Eli Lilly and Company, and Alcatel.
Anant Sundaram, Associate Professor of Finance; Ph.D., Yale. Editorial Board, Journal of Multinational Financial Management; Author/coauthor of articles in: Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Money and Finance, and others.
Mary B. Teagarden, Professor of World Business; Ph.D., USC. Author of articles in Academy of Management Journal, Organizational Dynamics, and Human Resource Management Journal; Editor, Journal of Management Inquiry; Research awards from Irwin–Proctor & Gamble Research, Pacific Asian Management Institute, and Western Academy of Management.
Michael W. Woolverton, Continental Grain Professor of Agribusiness; Ph.D., Missouri. Venture and Acquisition Analyst, Cargill, Inc.; Field Sales Representative, Geigy Agricultural Chemical Company; Author, Marketing in Agribusiness, Cases in Agribusiness Management, and Computer Concepts for Agribusiness; Managing Editor, Agribusiness: An International Journal.
William E. Youngdahl, Assistant Professor of Operations Management; Ph.D., USC. Author/coauthor of articles in: Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, IEEE Transactions of Engineering Management, and International Journal of Service Industry Management.