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| Alumni Association Home > Minnesota Magazine > Past Issues > 2005 > January-February 2005 | ||||||||
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By Margaret S. Carlson, Ph.D. '83
The University of Minnesota’s new strategic plan is a work in progress, but the stated goal, as of early December, is to be one of the top three public research universities in the world. Many colleagues would agree with me that our competitors today include the University of Michigan, the University of California–Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Wisconsin. My recent trip to China, however, leads me to predict that several Chinese universities soon will be contenders for these top honors.
I’ve traveled to China with U delegations in 1996, 2000, and 2004. To say that a sea change is under way in education in that country is an absolute understatement. China’s minister of education, working with province governments, has designated nine higher education institutions as keys to China’s future, and the government is channeling massive amounts of money into these and other institutions across the country. What’s more, China is also improving access to education. In 1990, 1.1 million freshmen were enrolled in Chinese universities. Today, 4.3 million freshmen are enrolled.
At Fudan University in Shanghai, university president Wang Shenghong showed us a scale model of two entirely new campuses that will be completed over the next five years. The design, investment, and scope were staggering. In Chengdu, we toured the recently opened, 20,000-student campus at Sichuan University, complete with new academic buildings, dorms, recreational fields, and miles of exquisite water features, malls, and plantings. Clearly, the Chinese understand that education is about mind, body, and spirit. Meanwhile, China’s premier universities and government agencies are embracing educational partnerships with select American universities. And the Chinese have more suitors than they have opportunities for collaboration.
In Chengdu, our delegation crossed paths with University of Tennessee chancellor and Minnesota alumnus Loren Crabtree (B.A. ’61, M.A. ’65. Ph.D. ’69), a scholar of Chinese history and American–East Asian relations. His institution was finalizing a 3+1 program in which Chinese undergraduates will study their first two years at Sichuan University, spend one year at Tennessee, and complete their degrees at Sichuan.
Our delegation forged a partnership with the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on this mission. And the U already has several ties to China, including the Carlson School of Management’s Executive M.B.A. program at Lingnan College in Guangzhou and the Law School’s L.L.M. degree in Beijing, where we have a partnership with China University of Political Science and Law and the Beijing Fazheng Group, a business and education enterprise.
The University of Minnesota is fortunate to have an outstanding reputation in China. The U began admitting Chinese students in 1914, and we have more than 8,000 alumni in China. We currently have 1,200 Chinese students on campus and are one of only two U.S. universities, along with the University of Maryland, with a China Center. Many of our alumni are revered in China, including the late Pei-Sung Tang (B.A. ’28, hon. Ph.D. ’96) the father of plant physiology in China, and Hoff Lu (M.S. ’39, Ph.D. ’41), the father of nuclear energy in China.
And many up-and-comers in China are U alumni, including alumni association chapter presidents Simon Wong (B.A. ’74, B.S. ’75), group chairman and managing director of Kampery Development in Hong Kong; Beihua “Jacky” Tang (M.A. ’99), acclaimed performer and respected professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music; and Wenjie Fu (M.P.A. ’02, L.L.M. ’02), section chief of the General Office of the Standing Committee for the National People’s Congress of China in Beijing.
At Fudan and Sichuan universities, President Bruininks addressed standing-room-only auditoriums of students. Their eyes lit up when Bruininks told them that we have more Chinese students studying at our institution than any other school in the United States. During the question-and-answer session, their queries focused primarily on access to graduate education in the United States: What would strengthen their applications? How can they navigate the visa process? (Since 9/11, the number of visas granted to foreign students has fallen dramatically, and at the University of Minnesota, applications by foreign students to master’s and doctoral programs have decreased by 34 percent during the past two years.)
My hope is that our university will see China as a two-way superhighway for the exchange of students, faculty, and business and political leaders. To fully manifest the potential of strong educational ties to China, the University’s new strategic plan must include an investment in and expansion of international relations.
And Governor Tim Pawlenty (B.A. ’83, J.D. ’86) and the Minnesota Legislature must grasp that investment in higher education is not only key to the future of Minnesota, it is key to being competitive in the world economy. While our elected officials are finding ways to rationalize less support for higher education, government and educational leaders halfway around the world see education as the key to a better tomorrow. The best way for the governor to truly understand the issues would be to lead a higher education mission to China and other Asian countries to learn first-hand what they are doing to promote and support education, as was recommended in the recent Citizens League report on the future of higher education in Minnesota.
If Europe was the educational pinnacle of the past, the United States holds that honor today. Who will be on top of the world at the end of the 21st century? That decision is being made today, in state capitols across the United States.