French b-school coming to NC State

Big news today for NC State: SKEMA, one of the top business schools in France, will be opening a facility on NC State's Centennial Campus in January 2011.  Yours truly is quoted in the story saying that this is a "pretty big deal."  It is the first case (of which I am aware) of a foreign business school setting up a campus on US soil.  A number of US schools, including Chicago and Duke, have opened up operations overseas.  This is further evidence that we are entering an era of global competition in management education.  NC State, UNC-CH and Duke will have the opportunity to partner with SKEMA on multiple fronts: research, executive education, and academic programs. 

SKEMA is a new business school formed last year when ESC Lille and the Ceram Business School in Nice merged.  Before the merger, the Financial Times ranked Lille #44 and Ceram #49 in its 2009 rankings of European business schools.