Amar Gupta

To educate students about outsourcing, a professor from the Eller College of Management will offer a course on the topic next week and has offered to pay the $250 late registration fee for any student interested.

Amar Gupta, professor of entrepreneurship, said before the course was only available at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Because of the course's popularity and importance, Gupta is offering the same course to any UA student interested in outsourcing.

Outsourcing is to buy labor or parts from a source outside a company or business rather than using the company's staff or plant.

Students who wish to sign up for the course will have to pay a $250 late fee, but Gupta, who taught at MIT for 25 years, said if the money deters students from joining, he will pay the fee himself.

"I feel that the students and the university will benefit from this course, and in case I don't find any other way, I will pay the $250 late fee for students," Gupta said. "I don't think it's fair for the students to have to pay."

Gupta said he invited guest speakers from industries, governmental agencies, trade unions and educational institutions around the nation to speak to the class about their views on outsourcing.

"We wanted to get a good cross section of people from all fields," said Gupta, who is also the Thomas R. Brown chair in management and technology. "Students need to be able to relate to different cultures so they can be trained to be better global managers."

Gupta said he chose to start the class during the second half of the semester to prevent speaker cancellations.

"Many of the guest speakers are from the East Coast and I wanted to minimize the chance of having to cancel a speech due to snow," Gupta said.

Since the course begins mid-semester, some students think it may be hard to work a new class around their existing schedules.

"I think it'd be an interesting class because I've read a lot about outsourcing, but I don't have a lot of experience with it," said Noelle Stillman, a public administration graduate student. "It might be hard for some people to take this class because people have a lot of commitments that are already set."

Some students who have already signed up for the course think it's convenient that it starts later in the semester.

"I think it sounds like a cool class, it would be interesting to hear the guest speakers," said Jaime Denny, a professional mathematics graduate student. "It might be hard to start another course in the middle of a semester, but if it's starting after midterms then that is one less midterm."

For other students, the course filled in gaps that were left from unavailable classes.

"I was registered in a different course, and it suddenly became unavailable," said Raeef Hijazi, an engineering graduate student. "This course will be very important for my engineering career because many engineering companies are involved with outsourcing."

Classes will be on Mondays and Wednesdays starting next week. Students interested in taking the course can sign up today and Monday by contacting Linda Erasmus at 621-3861 or e-mail her at erasmus@email.arizona.edu.