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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
In a distant land, two groups from Metro sought the opportunity to share a new language as well as an innovative business plan with students and faculty back home.
By setting up partnerships with various schools in China, administrators, faculty and students hope to bridge cultural differences and gain a new perspective on higher education.
“They (students) really need to have an international experience,” said Betsy Zeller, director of globalization at Metro.
Zeller joined President Stephen Jordan and several faculty and staff members on a trip to the cities of Kunming and Chengdu in China to sniff out possible partnerships with other institutions of higher education.
“The opportunity to have an exchange program with a similar institution and a similar mission is very exciting,” Jordan said.
Their first stop was to Yunnan Radio and Television University in Kunming where Metro signed an agreement in May that will help to solidify a faculty and student exchange program. Included in their ideas for a partnership is the potential creation of a Confucius Institute at Metro.
Only 100 colleges and universities worldwide are chosen to host Confucius Institutes – schools that provide instructors with the education and tools to teach Chinese language courses.
“Yunnan selected us to partner for CI (Confucius Institute),” Zeller said. “Out of all the places in the world they could pick, they selected us.”
The opportunity for Metro to become a hub for continued education in the Chinese language was spawned in part from an existing partnership between Chengdu and Douglas County Schools, who are currently offering classes in the Chinese language. They are looking to extend language lessons past the high school level by partnering with Metro.
“We will design and align our program with Douglas County,” Zeller said.
Metro delegates met with members of Sichuan University, Chengdu Metropolitan University and the Chengdu Municipal Education Bureau in hopes of coming to an agreement on an exchange program for faculty and students.
Such an exchange program would involve faculty traveling to Sichuan where they would learn the language as well as new aspects of the culture and people. And while students from Douglas County could utilize Metro’s Chinese language program to continue their education, Metro students would also benefit from the opportunity to learn a new language.
With partnerships between both Yunnan and Sichuan on the table, Metro Associate Professor of Marketing Donald Chang said opportunities for collaboration are abound.
“There’s a great potential for a professor to go over there and teach English,” Chang said.
Modern Languages Chair Rodolfo Garcia is pleased with the way Jordan presented Metro’s assets, and said the trip was a worthwhile venture.
Though Garcia is enthusiastic about what the future holds, he said the school must be meticulous in ironing out the details of any exchange program.
“We have to consider the level of (teachers’) proficiency in the language,” Garcia said.
“I need to know the expectations of me as a teacher.”
Lisa Ortiz, assistant professor for the department of technical communication and media production, said the Chinese are very interested in developing online classes because presently only the wealthy and those enrolled in school have access to computers and the Internet.
“I think they can learn a lot from us, but we can also learn a lot from them,” she said.
Those in attendance on the first of several trips to China left with a new understanding of the culture, having been exposed to the language and their unique education system.
“All of that (language lesson) enlarged everyone’s capacity for travel and other cultures,” said Marilyn Hetzel, director of theatre and chair of communications arts and sciences.
While Jordan’s team continued to solidify ties to broaden Metro’s language opportunities, a second group of Metro representatives made their way to Beijing in mid-May to pursue an alliance of their own.
They are part of a fledgling program known as Brand Spankin’ New, an online business that sells home furnishings made by Metro students from the industrial design department and promoted by the marketing department.
“It’s the only student-run business in the country that’s part of an undergraduate curriculum,” said Mick Jackowski, assistant professor for the marketing department.
The group began talks with Tsinghua University School of Art and Industrial Design, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and the Tsinghua University about creating a mutually beneficial critique of each other’s design projects.
“You can tell it’s ripe with business opportunities in China,” said Ken Phillips, assistant professor of the industrial design department. “You can smell it.”
More than 30 design and 80 marketing students participate in BSN – a program many students and faculty see as an innovative learning experience.
“BSN is the opportunity for experimental learning,” Jackowski said. “We hope to do more of this type of teaching as BSN grows.”
Brian Glotzbach, the student trustee for Metro and an attendee on the trip, agreed that this out-of-class experience is a highly beneficial one.
“I liked the concept of bringing real world experience into the classroom,” he said.
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