China Radio International-China Business Schools Attracting Foreign Students
Apr 18-2013
http://english.cri.cn/4406/2009/12/08/1701s534248.htm
In the heart of the Peking University campus sits a cluster of buildings built for a member of the imperial family during the Qing dynasty, more than one hundred years ago. The traditional architecture is a sharp contrast with the cutting edge educational program housed here.
Over the last five years, international student enrollment at the Beijing International Masters of Business Administration program has gone from five percent to forty percent. And it happened without the school making a special effort to recruit international students. School administrators say a lot of hard work put the program in position to take advantage of changing trends. Of course the school benefits from the growth of the Chinese economy. But main draw is the program itself. On graduation, students receive their degrees from program partner Vlerick Leuven Gent, one of the leading business schools in Europe. All the courses are taught in English, and the majority are taught by international instructors.
Lucy Liu is the Director of Admissions at BiMBA, as the program is called. She says international partnerships formed when the program was founded in 1998 provided the essential groundwork for current success.
"At that time China had very few international programs for M.B.A., and we didn't know how to do an international program. So we cooperated with foreign schools. So we know how can we organize our international M.B.A., how can we teach. And also we imported a lot of faculty and curriculum from the U.S. This helped us a lot."
Academic Affairs director Catherine Du says a lot of the curriculum was developed with the help of a group of American business schools, including Fordham University in New York.
"All the core courses in the American M.B.A programs were included in our curriculum. And at the same time, because we are a Chinese program, we integrated into it a lot of Chinese elements. For instance, from the very beginning we had a course called China's economic development and management."
Pamela Berns is a visiting professor from Fordham University. She's been teaching at BiMBA for eight years, and has had to make some changes in her classes to fit the changing demographics of her classroom.
"That task was about teaching Chinese students the Western way. As our students have become more international here we've had to add a lot more discussion about multi-national and cross-cultural issues. So the course is shifting to reflect the changing population of international students coming here."
While Professor Berns spends less time trying to explain the West to Chinese students, Tony Liu teaches the BiMBA course that tries to explain China to foreign students. His course is not just a quick look at doing business in China, but a deeper look at Chinese culture.
"I think one very important point in this class is the cultural perspective, for example Confucianism, how that affects our behavior. If they understand why we do it this way, or the cultural background or rationale behind the behavior, maybe there will be less frustration for those foreigners. We don't want to tell them what they should do. We just want to explain why we do it this way."
Of course what learn from their teachers is important. But BiMBA students say they learn the most from each other. Morris Wong is a student from Seattle, Washington, in the United States.
"People bring different perspectives depending on where they're from. And for me the take-away has been things are done differently around the world. Coming from the U.S., we have students from China, from Europe, and everyone thinks differently. So it's forced us to hone in and be more cross-cultural."
John Yang is the International Dean at BiMBA. He says that kind of cross cultural understanding is one of the key goals of the program.
"International empathy means that individuals are likely to be understanding the other person's perception and where the person comes from and how they are able to develop views, and why these views are likely to not be objective. That is why it is so critical for the international students to be mingled with the Chinese students to debate on issues, to understand issues."
And of course Chinese students like Gennie Luo learn just as much from their foreign counterparts.
"I learned some character. For example, in China we always appreciate Confucianism. That means everyone has to be quiet and don't speak loudly in public. But I think in this class we have to be more active. We have to learn from each other and learn from each others' new opinions. And I think that's very important."
The faculty at BiMBA hope their program, where students study an international curriculum and receive an international degree in China can serve as a model for other programs around China. If they're right, China could become known as an importer of students, as well as an exporter.
For China Now, I'm Thomas Rippe.
