On Wisconsin! Those words greeted me during my ascent of the Great Wall last summer while studying abroad in Tianjin, China. After I was mobbed by Chinese tourists eager to take a picture with me and get an autograph from a ""real"" American, those two words were as welcome as an Ian's pizza on Friday night. What made me more ecstatic was this person, one of the few foreigners I saw outside of Beijing, was an alumnus of UW-Madison.
One in five people on the planet are citizens of the People's Republic of China. For the 2010 fall semester, 50 percent of the incoming international freshman at UW-Madison were from China. As their economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, one thing is clear: China will play a key role in both our professional lives and in the university's development.
UW-Madison has made great headway when it comes to reaching out to China. Chancellor Biddy Martin has been to China more than any other foreign country during her tenure as chancellor. She recently returned from a trip that focused on building positive relations within China on both an educational and a state level. The university has made it a priority to build relations with China in educational terms.
""We are building a range of different kinds of relationships,"" Martin said upon her return to campus. ""Obviously, we are developing closer institution-to-institution ties with major universities as a way of supporting existing collaboration and creating new opportunities for our faculty and students.""
Furthermore, UW-Madison is building relationships on a state level in order to increase Wisconsin's global influence and notoriety.
""On this trip we met with two provincial governors and members of their staffs to discuss possible state-to-state collaborations,"" Martin said.
How does this kind of outreach affect UW students and alumni? As Martin pointed out, ""We are enhancing the long-term value of a UW-Madison degree by making the university more visible in important parts of the world."" Creating these kinds of ties is an excellent approach for the university to take in order to continue to develop UW-Madison's status as a world-class university. Building relationships in China directly impacts students who wish to study abroad, or even work abroad one day. During her trip, Martin met with six Wisconsin based companies, all of whom expressed interest in having UW-Madison students as interns.
Establishing connections within China is also vital to keeping our university competitive both in the U.S. and abroad. China is investing in higher education across the board to attract well-qualified professors and build their own research institutions.
""The investments in higher education [in China] are staggering. And the efforts of Chinese universities to attract native Chinese and American scholars away from U.S. universities is working,"" Martin said.
The university must be able to attract top professors from all over the world, and retain the best ones we already have here on campus if we want to increase the value of a degree. ""It was almost as if we had come upon a Big Ten meeting"" Chancellor Martin said when she met with the administration and key faculty from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Several previous administrators of other Big Ten schools such as the provost from the University of Michigan and two deans from Iowa and Purdue had left their position at their respective schools to take positions at HKUST.
We can't afford to lose our best and brightest here at UW-Madison because we lack funding. Increasing federal and state support is one way to remain competitive, but with our government deeply in debt this will be an increasingly difficult task. Tuition hikes are also an option, but the university should try to make attending college at UW-Madison more affordable, not less. Increasing private support from alumni is then perhaps the best method for making the university more competitive in all parts of the world.
After speaking with the alumnus about State Street, Badger football and life on campus, I had never been more proud to be Badger. What made me even happier was the fact that he was doing extremely well working in China with the degree he earned from UW-Madison. As students, our competition is no longer just sitting in the classroom beside us. It's sitting in classrooms thousands of miles away in places like Beijing and Hong Kong. Recognizing this fact is critical as students progress on their career paths. The university is doing a great job at building those key relationships in places like China that will help students succeed in the 21st century.
Matt Payne is a junior majoring Chinese and economics. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
