Arcadia University President Carl (Tobey) Oxholm III and Dr. Steve O. Michael, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, recently returned from a whirlwind visit to the Far East. In just six days, they traveled to nine different institutions and organizations across China, visiting friends as well as establishing new affiliations and joint programs.

“Arcadia will be populated by the globe,” says Provost Michael. “The intention is for Arcadia to become a comprehensive model when it comes to internationalization. Students from China and all over the world are coming to Arcadia. They will increase the diversity for our domestic students and together with our domestic students, prepare themselves to go out and become leaders in the world.”

The trip began in the Tongzhou District of Beijing, with a half-day visit to Canvard College of Beijing Technology and Business University on June 12. There, the Provost met with President Xuyang Yan and Director of the International Center, Yuquing Pan, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. The Institute, which was established in 2004, is currently 6,000 students strong and in the process of developing an international business academy. Read more.

That afternoon, the Provost visited Beijing Wuzi University, where he met with Xudong Wang, President; Wesheng Wang, Vice President; Xing Han, Director of the International Center; and Jianwei Pan, Professor.

Beijing Wuzi University, with whom Arcadia signed a Memorandum of Understanding in December 2009, is a municipal, public university that was founded in 1980. It features the School of Economics and Finance, School of Logistics and School of Information Technology.  Total enrollment exceeds 8000 and 650 faculty and staff.  Arcadia boasts two M.B.A. students from Wuzi: Fan Yang, earned an M.B.A. in June 2012, and Linyao Wang began his studies in January, 2012.

Arcadia also will welcome Professor Jianwei Pan from Wuzi for the academic year 2012-13.  She will focus on her research in consumer economics.

On the morning of June 13, President Oxholm and Provost Michael met the leadership of Hunan University of Finance and Economics (HUFE) in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan Province, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Read more.

HUFE is located at the foot of Yuelu Mountain, along the western bank of Xiangjiang River. Developing from Housheng Accounting Institute, which was founded in 1933, the school was officially named Hunan University of Finance and Economics under the approval of the Ministry of Education of China in March 2010.

In the afternoon, the two headed across Hunan Province to Changsha University of Science and Technology (CUST). They met with Dillon Wu, Director of Changsha’s International Center.

CUST is an engineering-centered multidisciplinary university integrating engineering, science, management, economics, liberal arts and law, with strong disciplinary advantages and prominent features in the industries of communications, electric power and water conservancy. The university is jointly established by the Central Government and Hunan Provincial Government, mainly under the administration of Hunan Province. Read more.

After signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Changsha, President Oxholm and Provost Michael immediately headed for the airport, catching a flight to the capital of the Shaanxi province. At Xi’an International University they met with Huang Teng, President; Dr. Du Ruiqing, Vice President; and Dawei Yang, Vice Director of the International Center.

“Xi’an University is the strongest partner that we have,” says Provost Michael. “The joint degree programs that we are designing together will help foster English language training abroad.”

Recently,  Xi’an assigned a designated space in its American Center for Arcadia and Philadelphia. President Oxholm is collaborating with local Pennsylvania leaders to populate this space.

Xi’an International University was founded in 1992 with the accreditation of the nation’s Ministry of Education for its diverse four-year bachelor and three-year vocational programs. It is located in the heart of the Xi’an high-tech zone. Xi’an was the main host of Educators Preview and the site of the first annual International Conference on Global Advancement of Universities and Colleges (GAUC) in May 2011, which Provost Michael co-founded and chaired.

Following yet another flight—this time to Nanchang—the President and Provost arrived at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics (JUFE) on June 15. They met with Wang Qiao, President; Jiang Jingfa, Vice President; Shenggui Cai, Director of International Center; Yangsong Gao, Vice Director of the International Center; and Long Xiao, Vice Director of the International Institute.

JUFE is located in the Northeast section of Nanchang, Jiangxi Provice, China. It was founded in 1923 and under dual leadership of Jiangxi Province and the Ministry of Finance of China. A  comprehensive institution of higher learning, JUFE focuses on business and economics subjects.  There are 48 undergraduate programs, 86 postgraduate programs, 25 doctoral programs and 4 postdoctoral programs.  Professor Xu-Chuan Xu from JUFE was the first Visiting International Professor in 2011; a second professor,  Prof.  Xifeng Zhang is expected to spend her sabbatical year at Arcadia n 2012-13.  She is currently Associate Dean of the School of Internatinoal Economics and Trade.

Yucheng Jin, a JUFE graduate,  is also a proud alum from the M.B.A. Class of 2012.

The next day, President Oxholm and Provost Michael visited Jiangsu University and met with administrators of the university, including Shouqi Yuan, President; Huaxi Xu, Vice President; and Dianchen Lu, Director of International Affairs. They also met with  23 students who are  the first participants in the Joint Undergraduate Degree program with  Arcadia’s Mathematics and Applied Mathematics department. President Oxholm and Provost Michael personally welcomed them to Arcadia University. Read more.

Jiangsu University is a comprehensive university in Jiangsu Province with a strong reputation in Engineering.  The university is ranked in the top 100 Chinese universities and offers 42 Ph.d. programs, 167 master’s degrees and 83 undergraduate degrees.

President Oxholm and  Provost Michael also visited Jiaozhou Number One High School on June 16. They met withZhaoxia Zhou, Director of International Center. They last visited Jiaozhou in fall 2011, when President Oxholm served as the keynote speaker at the public unveiling of its new Association of Global Education Exchange.

Arcadia University has an ongoing relationship with Jiaozhou and hosts students and faculty from the high school each year. Twenty-two Jiaozhou students and two teachers will visit Arcadia’s campus from July 23-28 to get to know the campus, its programs and the  surrounding region.

The Provost and President rounded off their trip together at Dalian Nationalities University on June 17, where they met with Shubin Li, Party Secretary; Xiaohui Wang, Director of International Center; Sen Tian, Director of International Business School; Xiang Wang, Director of International Culture Exchange School; Zhigang Zhang, Vice Director of International Center; and Juyong Zhange, Vice President of Economics and Management Department.

Dalian Nationalities University, located in Liaoning Province, is one of just three nationalities universities in China that includes representatives from all of China’s 56 different ethnic groups as well as a large population of international students. It was founded in 1984 and was known as Northeast Nationalities University before 1997.

Since Arcadia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Dalian Nationalities University on May 1, the University has agreed to host a visiting professor from Dalian in the fall, Dr.  Annie Long.  Dr.  Long’s research interests include accounting and financial analysis.  [Read more.]  A transfer student from Dalian, Luhan Tang, returns to Arcadia in the fall of 2012 to resume her undergraduate degree in Psychology.   She began her studies at Dalian in Japanese.

On the last day of his visit, Provost Michael was invited to meet with the China Scholarship Council (CSC), a non-profit institution affiliated with the Ministry of Education.

The CSC uses legal and economic means to manage the affairs of the Chinese citizens studying abroad and of the foreigners studying in China, as well as to establish contacts with its counterparts at home and abroad to carry out exchange and cooperation with them.

The Council is officially changing the joint degree program regulations, selecting a number of academic institutions to work with. Arcadia is among five to 10 U.S. based institutions that is collaborating with the Council.

“It’s a great privilege to have a relationship and to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese Scholarship Council,” says Provost Michael. “The government believes that many of these joint degree programs that have been worked out one-on-one have not been as effective as they wanted them to be. And we have the privilege of being one of the universities invited.”

“I’ll give you an example of what an institution’s President has said, ‘We have come to realize that Arcadia is actually more important than Harvard to us. This is because of the relationship we have—we can achieve our goals through Arcadia.’”