PSU Magazine Fall 1990

GLASNOST CONNECTION Three views of how a freer Soviet Union is opening up invigorating and sometimes overwhelming opportunities for PSU faculty and students. UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS In September, a vanguard of approxi– mately 25 Soviet managers will enter a classroom in Portland's Soviet sister city of Khabarovsk, signalling the start of the first Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA) style ofprogram to be taught in the Soviet Un ion. The history– making program, which also embodies short certificate courses, is modeled on PSU's relatively new videotaped Statewide MBA Program taught at 15 sites throughout Oregon. To be formali::ed as the "American School ofBusiness Administration" (SASBA) , this pioneering effort to systematically teach Soviet citizens how to run their businesses within the structure of a Western-style market economy is the result of untold hours of delicate diplomatic and scholastic negotiations, "perestroika," the relaxing of the country's economic structure, numerous U.S.-Sovietfact-finding trips, PSU 8 .. NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN Introduction by Cli.f!Johnson Excedrin-level headaches and plain , hard work on both sides of an Iron Curtain . Many share the credit for success/idly activating this joint venture betvveen Portland State's School of Business Administration and the Khabarovsk Institute of Nationa l Economy (KINE) . But the most visible architect of this wind of change has been , is and continues to be Dr. Earl Molander, director of the Soviet and East European Business Administration Center (SEEBA ) located at PSU. Molander, a professor of business administration, thrives on big challenges. What else explains an edu cator who willingly immerses himself in the complexities ofestablishing this new Soviet American School while simultaneously waging an uphill balfle as the current Republican candidate for Congress in Oregon's First District, and all the while concluding a term as chair of the busy Management Department within PSU' s popular School of Business? Clearly , this is a man who literally views the classroom as a window on the world . He recemly shared this vision with PSU Maga::ine. W hen I first originated the Portland-Kabarovsk sister city relationship in 1982, we wan ted to adv ance real people-to-people relationships not onl y to help diffuse tensions between two world super-powers, but also to stimulate mutual cooperation on a variety of local-level activities like cultural and educational exchanges. One local group was even trading endangered spec ies of birds. But with all the changes taking pl ace in the Soviet Union in the last five years, and particularly considering the accelerated rate of movement toward a more liberal and decentrali zed society during the past two , we quickly came to view our work as even more important than before. That 's because our earlier trips to the Soviet