Talking to Alain Quénelle

President, Total Professeurs Associés

« A total of 65,000 students took our courses between 2001 and 2007. »

What makes Total Professeurs Associés so unique?

Several things. For a start, our association structure and volunteer network organization, as well as the profile of our instructors, who are all high-level managers with extensive professional experience. Also, the fact that we don’t charge for our courses outside France.

That said, I’d like to clear up one point right away: just because we’re flexible, volunteers and free doesn’t mean that we’re amateurs. Our instructors all possess a high degree of expertise and proficiency in the material they teach. And we meet our commitments in terms of program content and scheduling.

Speaking of which, do you have a selection or vetting process? The scope of your network might make one necessary.

Of course. New instructor applications are reviewed and vetted each month by the association’s executive. We consider the opinions of Total’s human resource managers in our vetting process. Likewise, when it’s time to renew the membership of a TPA instructor, we take into account the feedback of officials at the university where the instructor taught.

Isn’t there a risk your association structure will slow your growth?

You might think so, and yet it doesn’t. When we created TPA in 2001, we began by working with science and technical universities and engineering and business schools in France with a focus on students in their fourth year. Our activities have since grown steadily outside France, usually at the request of Total subsidiaries, especially in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South America. In 2007, 45% of our instruction took place outside France. Our major project today involve China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and Algeria.

Has your international expansion gone as far as partnership agreements?

Yes. In liaison with subsidiary managers, we’ve signed more than 20 partnership agreements in the last three years. These five-year Memoranda of Understanding include a commitment to promote exchanges and become regularly involved in program development. In Algeria, for example, in conjunction with Boumerdes University’s Faculté des Hydrocarbures et de la Chimie (Hydrocarbons and Chemicals Faculty), whose female dean now sits on our Board of Directors, we’re part of the graduate and postgraduate curricula of the faculty, the only one in Algeria authorized to grant Petroleum degrees.

Compared to the association of teachers you had in mind six years ago, is today’s TPA what you expected?

A total of 65,000 students took our courses between 2001 and 2007. The figures speak for themselves.