UGA Partners with Top Chinese University

BEIJING — The University of Georgia and China's premier institute for science and technology agreed to increase cooperative research and student exchanges on Thursday, the latest in a string of initiatives by Georgia schools to grow ties with China.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, in his first visit to China, presided over a signing ceremony sealing the partnership between UGA and Tsinghua University, a school of 27,000 students in northern Beijing.

CRAIG SIMONS/Cox Newspapers (enlarge photo) Governor Sonny Perdue and Chen Xiao, a professor at Tsinghua University, talk on Thursday in Beijing.

The ceremony — which included UGA Provost Arnett Mace and Tsinghua Vice President Xie Weihe —was a key event in Perdue's China tour this week and highlighted state efforts to increase links with China, the world's fastest-growing large economy.

"This partnership with China's most prestigious university builds on Georgia's many educational ties with China, and opens new frontiers for Georgia students," Perdue said. "By creating international educational opportunities for our students we are preparing them to enter the global economy and to contribute to Georgia's outstanding intellectual capital."

Georgia schools have responded to rising demand for Chinese language and culture classes by signing dozens of similar initiatives.

UGA currently has about 11 cooperation agreements with Chinese universities, including a program with Tsinghua's law school to offer summer classes and a relationship with Chinese government institutes to provide mid-career training classes to Chinese officials, Mace said.

More than 120 UGA students are studying in China and interest in China "is increasing almost exponentially across the University of Georgia," Mace said.

The partnership signed on Thursday at Tsinghua, a sprawling campus founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1911, will lead to concrete programs for UGA within a year, he said.

Georgia Tech collaborates with two Chinese universities. A program founded in 2004 with Shanghai Jiaotong University allows students to receive master's degrees from both institutions. The school is working with the Emory University School of Medicine to build a doctoral program in biomedicine with Beijing University.

"International is the defining piece for where Georgia Tech is in its life cycle," said Steven McLaughlin, a vice provost at the school who is traveling with the Georgia delegation. "China is an extremely important component of our international strategy."

Smaller universities in Georgia are also building ties with China. Kennesaw State University announced last week that it will open a Confucius Institute — a nonprofit program supported by China's government — this year to promote Chinese language and culture at the university and its surrounding community.

Coan Middle School opened Atlanta's first Confucius Institute last month.

Mercer University began offering executive MBA courses focused on doing business in China in 2006 and has a growing number of Chinese students studying English, said Richard Swindle, the school's senior vice president.

Georgia Tech Vice Provost McLaughlin said that companies "demand that our students be globally engaged and globally competent."

The university aims to have half of all graduates "have some sort of real international experience" through study abroad programs or international internships, he said.

On Wednesday, Perdue opened an economic development office in Beijing that will work to boost trade between Georgia and China, currently the state's third-largest export market.

The state has also supported broader academic links with China.

Roughly 30 public secondary schools offer Chinese language classes, a number that is "growing every year," said Al Hodge, vice chairman of Georgia's Board of Education.

The Imagine Wesley International Academy charter school in South Atlanta requires that all kindergarten through 8th-grade students receive daily Chinese lessons. School administrators eventually hope to create an emersion program where many classes will be taught in Chinese, said Hodge, who traveled to Beijing with a state delegation.

The state supports some China-related university programs indirectly through financial support to state universities, though Perdue called the relationship "more complementary than coordinated."

"Institutions in Georgia have sort of led the way for our state government in many parts," Perdue said.

"Just like the Coca-Cola Co. and its reputation, I think all of these things help pave the way for the state to come with an economic development office."

The new state trade development office in Beijing, which operates with an annual budget of $250,000, will work to attract Chinese investment to Georgia, increase Georgia exports to China and promote Georgia as a destination for Chinese tourists.

State funding for a decade-old program to train mid-level Chinese officials at UGA's Carl Vinson Institute of Government offers particularly clear long-term benefits for the state because it "provides us with connections" to China's rising leaders, UGA Provost Mace said.

Building a strong relationship between UGA, Georgia and China may deliver greater rewards.

"Given the stage that China is in, collaboration is absolutely essential not only to the economic vitality of the state of Georgia but also to building cultural understanding," Mace said.