HELVET'S
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF GOVERNANCE, GENEVA
VISION & MISSION
There are many able and deserving graduate students and mid-career executives around the world who cannot afford the time and/or money it takes to study abroad – if only because that entails one, two or more years away from home, and temporary loss of employment and living income.
Likewise, there are many organizations with continuing education needs for their staff that find it hard to identify a reputable academic entity prepared to cater for such needs on a fully customized basis.
There are also in all walks of life mature adults who have done far better professionally than they did at school decades earlier, and who feel that the discrepancy between their credentials and their achievements somehow needs to be redressed – through a procedure devoid of indulgence they will have no reason to be ashamed of.
These are precisely the kinds of needs that ISGG was founded to accommodate.
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND ITS ONLINE OFFERINGS
Distance learning is not by any means an easy road to take, especially as ISGG insists on rigorous academic standards (if only because the school’s faculty have international reputations to preserve). But given the right sort of effort on their part, personalized advice and guidance should help motivated enrollees along on their way to academic success.
This is true at doctoral level, even if continuous one-on-one electronic exchanges between PhD candidate and supervisor, and occasional face-to-face encounters between them, do not make the candidate’s situation fundamentally different from what it would be at a boarding university.
It is even truer at Master’s and Executive Master's level, for which pedagogy has to be adapted to the features and special requirements of distance tuition. As online learning processes are individual in nature, feelings of loneliness and isolation are apt to arise at the student’s end. To remedy this predicament, password-restricted online forums are provided for small groups of students to share their experiences and exchange tips and clues under their instructors’ guidance. Further, stimulating exercises are offered to make sure that the knowledge imparted has been fully absorbed, and individual performance is carefully monitored, with remedies proposed when things seem to get difficult. Another way around this inherent difficulty is to set up a week-long online Integrated Policy Exercise (IPE) crowning the syllabus, in which practice, collective action and teamwork are given pride of place, participating students’ communication and leadership skills are put to the test, and their ability to size up situations and decide under pressure is evaluated. The IPE’s purpose is clear enough: ISGG’s degree offerings are geared to international executive careers in the private, public or third sectors, and simulated real-life situations are of the essence in any education preparing students for their future roles.
At all levels, ISGG programmes emphasize personal methodology while creative thinking is encouraged and stimulated. To complement regular programmes, optional internships in Geneva or elsewhere, specially designed for students with no previous professional experience (or executives who wish to switch career fields), can be arranged on the basis of their career interests.
ETHICS & VALUES
The present statement of mission and vision would be incomplete without a solemn, albeit sober and brief, pronouncement on the ethics and values that govern ISGG’s activities. Intellectual rigour is not the only common denominator among its various offerings. In the vision that underpins them, normative considerations play an important background role. To put it simply: all programmes share the same philosophy of bona fide intellectual freedom and dialogue, as well as civic commitment to democratic values.
A strict honour code, applying to both students and faculty, is enforced to prevent any abuse – not least plagiarism and uncivil manners (not to mention behaviours that offend against the law or public morality). Violations can give rise to expulsion decisions by the school’s Academic Council.