Posted by President Mary Sue Coleman :: June 25, 2005
The long flight from Shanghai back to Michigan provided ample time to reflect on our trip, the people we met, the cities we visited, and the tremendous opportunities and challenges that await the University and our Chinese colleagues.
We left Ann Arbor determined to test two hypotheses: first, that we can build in China the partnerships that will allow our faculty and students – and the University as a whole – to reach their fullest potential in a globalizing world. And second, that the lessons of Michigan’s success as a great public research university can help produce change not just on one campus, but throughout Chinese higher education.
My answer to both: an unequivocal yes.
Throughout our trip, I often quoted former President James B. Angell, who did so much to open U-M’s relationship with China. He once said, “Every good institution of learning by its life helps every other good one.” We have continued that spirit with this important venture.
Today’s U-M students will leave Ann Arbor to live and work in an international environment. As educators, we must provide them exchange opportunities to learn how to develop the cultural agility they will need to succeed in a world that continues to grow smaller. We also know, from the lessons we have learned from diversity, that students learn a great deal from people who are different from them. A great university like Michigan must provide a full spectrum of opportunities for students to learn from different kinds of people and experiences, and our new Chinese partnerships add to that continuum.
China is an amazing country undergoing dramatic changes. Never in the history of the world has a nation seen the rise of so many people – hundreds of millions – into the middle class, as citizens move from the countryside to cities. With this transformation comes tremendous growth in housing, employment – and education. (It also provides phenomenal social science opportunities for faculty and students at both U-M and Chinese universities.)
The physical growth is obvious. Provost Paul Courant confessed that as a native New Yorker typically unfazed by skyscrapers, he could not stop looking up at the escalating Shanghai skyline. Both in Beijing and Shanghai, commerce is robust, traffic is staggering, and pollution is part of the landscape. So the Chinese cityscape is similar to the United States, yet also vastly different. Unlike the dense urban centers of New York, Chicago and Detroit, Beijing and Shanghai are spread out, complemented by reliable mass transit, excellent roads and stunning landscaping.
The changes unfolding in China extend deep into higher education. Over and over, we were impressed by the dedication of university officials in Beijing and Shanghai eager to improve their institutions. They are investing in their universities – in faculty, in programs and in the physical plant. They are anxious to evolve into some of the best universities in the world, and are looking to the University of Michigan for advice and guidance.
U-M has long prided itself on collaborative teaching and research; the same can be said for American higher education with its depth of interdisciplinary offerings. Whether faculty or students, we are eager to learn from each other, be it within our departments, across schools and colleges on our campuses, or beyond to other universities and colleges.
This environment of collaboration that is so inherent to American higher education is novel to Chinese universities, which are more insular in their structure and philosophy. In meeting with education officials and students, I stressed the benefits of a collaborative approach to research and learning. One of the strengths of a great university is its multidisciplinary work and its collaboration within and across universities, and I encouraged State Counselor Chen Zhili, Minister of Education Zhou Ji and other leaders to move toward this model for Chinese universities. I believe our academic agreements with universities in Beijing and Shanghai are important steps toward demonstrating the power of collaboration. I was pleased that Madame Chen Zhili shared this thinking and heartily endorsed our partnerships in an interview with Chinese media.
What comes next? Much. From Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Peking University, Fudan University and Tsinghua University, we have new partners and new opportunities for Chinese and American students and faculty. U-M has extraordinary programs in social science, engineering, the humanities and medicine – and all will serve as models at China’s universities.
Our agreements provide U-M students the opportunity to live and study in China –remarkable preparation for those with career aspirations in China and Asia. Any of us a generation (or more!) removed from being a college student could only have imagined the experiences our students will enjoy in Beijing and Shanghai. For our graduates to be competitive and successful, they must work hard to understand other cultures, societies, political systems, markets, and opportunities. Broadening the outlook of these future leaders through academic exchange will strengthen their ability to think and act on a cooperative basis.
I want to see more U-M students studying in China, and these newly signed agreements will open more doors. Throughout our visit, we met dozens of Michigan students who are serving internships or taking classes in subjects as diverse as architecture and educational psychology. They are clearly enjoying a unique opportunity, and it is one I want to see more of our students benefit from while at U-M.
We had fruitful discussions with leaders of General Motors and Ford, and we will build on those talks to assist them as they conduct business throughout China and Asia. In particular, they are looking to U-M for expertise in industrial health and safety programs, and I believe we can respond with our programs in Nursing, Medicine and Public Health. I feel strongly that U-M support Michigan businesses, and appreciate that GM and Ford are turning to us for insight. It is essential to our state’s economic well-being that we work together to understand the challenges of the global marketplace.
We connected with alumni, and will continue to build those relationships because U-M graduates are our greatest ambassadors. I cannot express how moving it was to stand alongside hundreds of enthusiastic Michigan alumni at the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai and sing “The Victors!” I appreciate the tremendous turnout of alumni, and look forward to meeting many more in the future.
The “flattening world” that columnist Thomas Friedman describes in explaining the rise of industry in countries like China and India holds perils for us, but also opportunities. Opportunities for our researchers to do cutting-edge work, from the unequalled social science laboratories of China’s rapidly changing communities to the search for the newest cancer therapies in the oldest herbal medicines. Opportunities for our students to obtain the language and cultural skills they need to succeed in the global economy. Opportunities for the broader communities of Michigan businesses to gain insights that will allow them to compete and collaborate successfully with China.
I want U-M students and faculty to be at the fore of this new world with their ideas and their leadership, and our partnerships with Chinese universities will take us in that direction.