Susan Fuhrman (left) with Cheng Davis forged international links, including a number between Penn and China.
Many of the programs are part of a push in the Graduate School of Education, under the leadership of Dean Susan Fuhrman, to internationalize education studies. On the very day of Zemin's visit, Fuhrman was in China, working on a joint research program.
The joint research program, U.S.-China: Planning for the 21st Century, is only one of several joint projects between GSE and China.
"The U.S. and China are facing similar issues related to instructional improvement, providing flexibility at the school level and monitoring quality," Fuhrman said. "We have a lot to learn from one another."
GSE's international efforts also include a six-nation research project; exchanges between Chinese and Penn scholars; and seminars and training here and in China for the chief financial officers of several Chinese universities on education financial management.
Additionally, each year, several hundreds of visitors come to GSE from an Asia anxious to educate its work force to be more compatible with other countries. The guests come from China as well as countries like Japan and Singapore, said Cheng Yan Davis, director of International Programs in GSE. And Penn graduate students study in Asia.
"GSE is the first U.S. graduate school of education to have such wide, deep exchanges with Asian countries," she said.
Exchanges began in 1993 when Davis came to Penn from Drexel and started the Six-Nation Education Research Project. GSE is the founder and international headquarters for the project, which brings together national-level policy makers and scholars from China, Singapore, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and the United States.
The project took off, however, when Fuhrman came to Penn, Davis said. Under Fuhrman's leadership, and with help from Penn President Judith Rodin, who enlisted the support of U.S. Department of Education Secretary Richard Riley, the group developed a research plan and got to work. Each participating nation took on primary responsibility for a different topic: Switzerland, for example, which has an extraordinary partnership between industry and education, took on research in vocational education; and the United States, where math and science performance drops after fourth grade, took on research in mathematics and science training.
The International Programs office also has worked with people in China to set up other links.
Davis credits Jiang's son, Shanghai businessman Jiang Mian Heng, whom she had met when he was a student at Drexel, with key introductions, including those for U.S.-China: Planning for the 21st Century, a collaborative effort with the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and the East China Normal University. The U.S. researchers, largely from the GSE-associated Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), are studying educational reform in Shanghai. President Jiang Zemin instituted the reform of Shanghai's schools when he served as mayor of Shanghai.
Many of Penn's connections with China are long-standing, including the School of Medicine's biomedical exchange program with Shanghai Second Medical University for more than 50 years, and Wharton's historic ties that date to the turn-of-the-century.
As former mayor of Shanghai, Jiang Zemin surely knew of the medical school affiliation in Shanghai, said Dr. Donald Silberberg, associate dean of International Medical Programs. Silberberg credits Davi with helping set up a new affiliation with the West China University of Medical Sciences, one of four affiliations the School of Medicine has with China.
Besides Medicine and Wharton, four other schools-Arts and Sciences, Dental Medicine, Education, and Engineer and Applied Science-have collaborative relationships in education and research with Chinese counterparts.
At least one of the most recent of those relationships grew out of a meeting in December 1996 brokered by Davis and Fuhrman between Jiang Mian Heng and Penn deans and administrators. Upcoming Wharton/GSE management training programs for Chinese officials in part grew out of that meeting.
The programs will train officials at the state, provincial and local levels, focusing on China's transition to the competitive, global economy and on the practices of market-driven companies. GSE will provide cultural information and language education in a business context, not unlike its role in another GSE/Wharton program funded and operated by the CIGNA Corporation and organized by Fuhrman and Davis. That program trains young leaders from Chinese industry in international business and finance.
Davis credits Jiang Mian Heng, who, she says, admires the excellence of Penn's programs. His advice and help were key links. "He helped us meet with the right people in China, and advised us on what China needs.
"All of this is because of Jiang Zemin's son, Dr. Jiang Mian Heng," Davis said. "He built a golden bridge for us."
Return to Compass Features for November 4, 1997