KU group visiting China, fostering exchange
Chancellor Robert Hemenway is leading a delegation of KU educators to China to develop more academic exchange programs and potential research collaborations for KU faculty and students.
The delegation left June 10 and will return June 17. They will visit seven Chinese universities, including Peking University, regarded as the "Harvard of China." There they will try to develop new study abroad destinations. They will also stop at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, the partner institution for KU's Confucius Institute. Hemenway will give a lecture on the Harlem Renaissance while at Huazhong Normal.
The delegation will meet with Kansas' trade representative in Beijing and several Kansas-connected companies doing business in China. Visits may include engineering giant Black & Veatch, an Overland Park-based company founded by two KU students, and YRC Worldwide (formerly Yellow Freight), a Fortune 500 company also based in Overland Park. The delegation also will meet with leaders of the Chinese Scholarship Council to discuss Chinese government-sponsored students that the council sends send to U.S. universities, and attend a briefing at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
Delegation members are:
- Rick Ginsberg, dean of the School of Education, will visit East China Normal University, a top school in special education, to explore potential exchanges. Notably, China is decades behind the United States in developing special education programs for its developmentally disabled or delayed students and KU distinguished professor Rud Turnbull has been working with the Chinese to write special education standards for the nation's schools. KU's special education program is ranked first in the nation among public universities by U.S. News & World Report.
- Joseph Steinmetz, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Holly Goerdel, assistant professor of public administration, will visit top universities to finalize plans initiated last year for KU to train Chinese government officials in urban management. KU's urban management graduate program is ranked No. 1 in the nation by U.S. News. Steinmetz will pursue potential collaborations with Chinese institutions that are especially related to the social sciences.
- Allen Rawitch, dean of graduate studies at the KU Medical Center, will visit Chinese schools that send students to KU to study medicine.
- Stephen Mazza, professor of law, will recruit students for a KU program that trains Chinese attorneys for practice in the United States.
- Bob Honea, director of the Transportation Research Institute, will visit several universities, including Qinghua University, considered China's counterpart to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to discuss collaborative research projects. Steinmetz, Goerdel and Rawitch also will visit Qinghua.
- The Confucius Institute's Bill Tsutsui, director, and Sheree Willis, associate director, will meet with education ministry officials about future plans for KU's year-old institute, which was the fourth established in the United States when it opened in May 2006. The institute provides courses in Chinese language and culture to regional schools and businesses. Willis also will be the delegation's interpreter, a role she has fulfilled on earlier trips, including a trade mission led by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
The KU Confucius Institute's partner university, Huazhong (Central China) Normal University, was originally one of six national teacher training universities in China. Now it is a comprehensive university with top-ranked programs in language, history, education, psychology, political science, law, life sciences, physical sciences and informational technology, as well as strengths in music and fine arts. Its college of education also houses one of a handful of special education departments in China.
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