Georgia State University, which has a tradition of working with universities abroad, announced on Dec. 16 that it has received $2.1 million worth of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The university’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business was awarded $1.5 million for a two-year partnership to support an executive-MBA, EMBA, program at Alexandria University in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Robinson College is the largest business school in the South, has programs on four continents, students from some 150 countries and 65,000 alumni.

Robinson faculty are to provide training to their counterparts in Alexandria and help the university revamp its curriculum, Bijan Faziollahi, professor and director of Robinson’s Center for Business Development in Transitional Economies, told GlobalAtlanta.

Dr. Faziollahi said that the Egyptian faculty does not have much experience with EMBA programs, which are not designed for recent college graduates but for those who are already experienced in the business world and are seeking to improve their skills.

Alexandria University currently has “too many technical courses,” in its EMBA program, he said, adding that they need more courses dealing with leadership issues.

The universities also are to exchange faculty.

In November, Dr. Faziollahi celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Caucasus School of Business in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, in November which he helped set up in the former Soviet republic. The Caucasus school now has 2,000 students.

In addition, Georgia State’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies has been awarded $400,000 for a three year-partnership with Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt, to help its economics and political science faculty enhance the curriculum and become a regional center for economic research.

The university also received $250,000 to fund a partnership with the Universidad Pedagogica Nacional of Mexico, a national university that trains teachers throughout Mexico. The partnership is to strengthen English language instruction.

2012 The Agio Press, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without expressed permission.