ANNUAL REPORT ON GIVING - Thunderbird Magazine ...

As Thunderbird 2010 became more defined, so
too did Thunderbird’s mission statement and
the supporting ideals. By the fall of 2005, the
new mission statement was: “We educate
global leaders who create sustainable prosperity
worldwide.” In support of that mission, the
school also defined five beliefs that defined
Thunderbird’s view on what makes a global
leader: Global Mindset, Global Entrepreneurship,
Global Connections, Global Citizenship
and Global Thought Leadership.
“The new mission statement re-defined
Thunderbird not around one specific program,”
Cabrera says, “but around one educational
objective, which could and should be attained
through multiple programs to better
serve the demands of a rapidly evolving world.
The new mission statement also reminded all
stakeholders of the ultimate dream behind the
founding of Thunderbird: to contribute to a
more peaceful and prosperous world by educating
globally minded leaders capable of creating
value across national and cultural
boundaries.”
Thunderbird 2010 structured the school’s
business model around three distinct but mutually
supporting business units: Academic
Programs, which would house all the degree
programs; Corporate Learning, which would
house all non-degree programs and services
offered to corporate clients; and the Research
and Knowledge Network, a think tank dedicated
to advancing our knowledge of global
business and management and making that
knowledge available to practicing managers
and corporations worldwide.
“We had to go from thinking we were a
school that offered one single program, to
thinking of ourselves as an institution that creates
and disseminates knowledge and educates
leaders of global enterprises in a spectrum of
ways,” Cabrera says.
Thunderbird 2010 established a number of
priorities for each of the three units that were
summarized in the four “Rs”:
1. Relevance—all programs must be consistent
with the school’s unique mission and beliefs
and clearly differentiated in the market
place;
2. Reach—programs ought to target highgrowth
markets to impact more lives;
3. Resources—each activity and program
must generate sufficient financial returns to
guarantee Thunderbird’s long-term viability
and competitiveness;
4. Research—Thunderbird must be clearly
positioned as a premier source of knowledge
and ideas for the advancement of global management
practices.
Academic Programs
In summer 2006, a new curriculum for
the MBA in Global Management—the
full-time program—was introduced.
The new curriculum offered a one-year
track for students with meaningful
business undergraduate backgrounds, added
new content in line with the school’s core values,
and reinstated a language requirement for
all students.
“The changes we made to the curriculum
represented a return to our core values,” says
Senior Vice President and Provost Rob Widing.
“It was critical that the school offer a number
of ways to get a Thunderbird education,
but we couldn’t lose sight of the fact that our
reputation is built on the quality of the full-
time program, and that the full-time program
should therefore be a flagship of the school’s
beliefs around global management education.”
In fall 2005, the school launched a brand new
Global MBA On-Demand program, which
for the first time used a sophisticated collaborative,
Internet-mediated learning methodology
that broke down geographic barriers in delivering
a Thunderbird MBA to working professionals
around the world. The program,
while somewhat controversial among students
and alumni at the time, has been highly
successful and each subsequent cohort has
grown larger and more diverse. The newest,
and fifth, cohort to enter the 18-month program
has 50 students.
“Now that the program has been running
for a couple of years, there is a greater awareness
among prospective students that Thunderbird
offers a quality Web-based degree,”
says Dr. Bert Valencia, a Thunderbird vice
president and head of the program. “Students
who would otherwise be unable to study at
Thunderbird are very happy that we offer this
option.”
President Ángel Cabrera
says “We had to go from
thinking we were a
school that offered one
single program, to
thinking of ourselves as
an institution that
creates and disseminates
knowledge and educates
leaders of global
enterprises in a
spectrum of ways.”
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