Courtesy International Executive Education Center

Four new executive master’s programs from the Fox School of Business and School of Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) will be offered at the National Library Building in Singapore beginning next year.

The Fox School of Business and School of Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) are pushing Temple deeper into Asia with the launch of four executive master’s programs in Singapore next year.

Starting in March 2011, the Fox School will offer its internationally ranked Executive MBA program. At the same time, STHM is launching its yearlong Master of Tourism and Hospitality Management – Executive Program. A Master of Science in Human Resource Management and a new Master of Accountancy program will follow.

The programs mark an effort to penetrate relatively uncharted territory for Temple. The new degrees join programs in quality assurance/regulatory affairs in Singapore offered by the School of Pharmacy in conjunction with the National University of Singapore.

For Fox and STHM Dean M. Moshe Porat, Singapore presents an opportunity for Temple to position itself at the crossroads of a growing region with a diverse population — and a strong need for managerial talent. In addition, Porat said, Singapore is attracting high-quality institutions such as Temple as the country strives to become an educational hub for the East.

“The Fox School and the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management — with our diverse, world-class faculty — are well-suited to further train professionals in Southeast Asia,” Porat said.

With an estimated population of 4.7 million, Singapore is “one of the world’s most prosperous countries with strong international trading links,” an open government and one of the world’s busiest ports, according to an online database managed by the CIA. In its annual “Doing Business” publication, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation have consistently ranked Singapore No. 1 in the world for ease of doing business, ahead of China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

“We want to be recognized in international circles,” said School of Tourism Associate Dean Elizabeth Barber, who is managing STHM’s Singapore program. “We’re in Tokyo, so to expand further into Asia is important to us. Anything to get our brand out into that part of the world is going to be very exciting for our school.”

The island nation, where Mandarin and English are the official languages, also has a sizable population of expatriates and natives who work for multinational corporations. According to Isaac Gottlieb, an outside consultant who is assisting with the Fox School’s Singapore programs, there is high demand among mid- to upper-level managers to improve their skill sets through American education programs.

Temple’s local partner is the International Executive Education Center, a private education institution dedicated to executive training and development. Classes will be offered in the 16-story National Library Building, a stunning, eco-friendly Singapore landmark.

Faculty members from Fox and STHM will rotate their travel to Singapore to teach the courses, which will generally be offered in a modular format (one course at a time) and meet on evenings and weekends.

The programs range in length from 10 modules for accounting and human resource management to 12 for tourism and hospitality and 16 for the Executive MBA, which will take approximately 14 months to complete.

Gottlieb, who has coordinated other academic programs through the International Executive Education Center, said professionals enrolled in the classes “learn just as much from each other as they do from the professor” because of their varied work experience and areas of interest.

“They can’t wait until Monday morning to go apply what they learn over the weekend in class,” he said.