MSM Partners' Conference 2016: Strengthening our unique Global MBA

MSM held its Partners’ Conference in Maastricht on 25 and 26 February 2016. Over 30 participants took part with 10 of MSM’s partner institutions from countries such as Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait, Peru, Romania, Turkey, UK, Vietnam and Yemen. MSM partners with these institutions in either delivering the master or Doctoral degree programs.

The Partners’ Conference is an MSM initiative to integrate efforts and to strengthen the quality Social Media Maastricht School of Management of the joint programs. 2015 marked the inaugural year for the conference with a very successful consecutive conference following this year. MSM’s Associate Dean Global Education Programs Ms. Katalin Kovacs said: “I am delighted to see that the conference continues its success. It’s an absolute pleasure to welcome our friends and colleagues to Maastricht and continue the exchange of ideas on how to ensure high quality delivery around the world”.

Similar to last year, the conference was geared towards administrative staff, who deals with the day-to-day business of students, grading, faculty, course schedules, etcetera. The program started with welcome words from MSM’s Dean, Professor Naudé, who talked about MSM’s new strategic initiatives for 2016 and onwards. This was followed by all around introductions as we welcomed some new partners to the conference this year, including University Campus Suffolk from the UK. Ms. Kovacs then presented the institution’s Quality Assurance and Accreditations policy prompting exciting discussions among the group, before diving into intensive topics such as the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), Education Examination Rules (EER), thesis supervision and the like.

Participants also received a refresher Moodle training and information on our assessment methods. We were also happy to welcome Dr Josette Dijkhuizen who gave a presentation on Entrepreneurship. Partners also had a chance to relax with colleagues from MSM, as the dinner took place at Bouchon d’en Façe, in the heart of Maastricht.

Ms Kovacs added: We hope to see the continued success of this initiative. The feedback we have received was very positive already even with suggestions of lengthening the conference to three days. As always we welcome suggestions as we go forward, and perhaps we could even host next year’s event at one of our partner institutes!