For nine days in late October, President White, Deans Phillips and Emmick, and Professors Blix and Widdows will be 20 hours away by plane, stationed on the other side of the world – literally.
“Actually, we’re trying to decide who will be in charge,” President White said, mindful of what, with so much executive power overseas, could turn into just the right situation for a coup. “But it’s not like we’re trekking across Mongolia. We’ll be in touch.”
Far from Mongolia, the group will fly to Beijing, China to meet, among other representatives, the president and vice-president of Fudan University, a prestigious university in Shanghai best known for finance and economics. On the table are plans to finalize discussions started last November to begin student and faculty exchanges with Fudan as early as May 2009. The exchange could bring a Chinese professor from Fudan to Wabash to teach Mandarin, the official language of China, by next school year.
“It just seems the right thing to do,” Professor Blix said, commenting on the strong interest in Asia tangible at the College since the ‘60s. “The College has always had a commitment to East Asia, although, in its own ways, it has waxed and waned over the years.”
This year, as the President and crew make business cards with Chinese characters on the back, that commitment seems to be waxing. Facilitated by Wabash alum and trustee Peter Kennedy ’68, the College’s relationship with Fudan began with a meeting last November in NYC, which was quickly followed by a second meeting in February. Beijing will mark the third meeting of Wabash and Fudan.
“We don’t know what’s going to come of it,” Professor Widdows said. “When you work with the Chinese, a lot is done behind the scenes, and generally, when you’re at a meeting, it’s pro forma. Alot of tea gets drunk, but not a lot of work gets done.”
While tea might show up more than written contracts in Beijing, the group’s goals are definite. Firstly, the College wants to begin sending students and faculty to Shanghai, as early as next summer. Part of the role of Professors Blix and Widdows while on ground in China will be to gauge the opportunities available for immersion trips and study abroad experiences.
“We want to have a closer look and make sure these classes are classes we’d like our students to take,” Widdows said. “Also, we want to look at how they teach Chinese as a second language.”
Observing Fudan’s teaching of Chinese is crucial. The College hopes to bring a professor from Fudan to teach Mandarin at Wabash as early as next fall, a study that, according to President White and Professors Blix and Widdows, is long overdue on campus.
“If we could get Mandarin going at this College, that would just be marvelous,” Blix said.
With China increasingly becoming a powerful economic and political player internationally, Mandarin would be a boost to any economics or political science major’s repertoire. However, President White sees more advantage to incorporating the East into the offerings of our curriculum than just the chance of a future business deal.
“It’s important for us to recognize,” White said, “that if our only context for liberal education looks to the Western tradition and not to the Eastern tradition, then we may not be doing what we need to be doing.”
One way to further look to the Eastern tradition in Wabash classrooms is to equip professors with the firsthand experiences and knowledge necessary to give students an impression of the Orient. Over the last fifteen years, there has been a renaissance of Chinese literature, an international rebirth of Confucianism, the establishment and rapid growth of the Chinese middle class, and a fundamental shift in the Chinese government. To bring this into the classroom, the College hopes to send faculty to Fudan over the summer. From improving the C&T module on China to establishing an exchange similar to the Ecuador Program, the effects of such a faculty immersion would be felt campus-wide – not to mention representing the liberal arts to China.
“As I understand it, Fudan is interested in starting a liberal arts college,” Blix said. “The idea of the liberal arts is foreign to the Chinese education system, and they’re fascinated by it.”
Known for their strict and memorization- based pedagogy, the liberal arts are largely a novelty in China, as, due to its rapid growth, it has lately focused almost exclusively on narrow and trade-based education. Now with enough wealth to relax some from industry, the liberal arts are gaining ground.
“It’s the notion of a luxury good,” Widdows said, “something that you consume more of as you get wealthy. China can now afford to not narrowly train people for vocations.”
And Fudan wants to be first in line for bringing the liberal arts to China. While, if things go as planned, Fudan will send a professor to Wabash to teach Mandarin, that professor will also be working in conjunction with Wabash’s Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts to learn why and how liberal arts education functions as it does. Wabash, then, will be Fudan’s case study for the liberal arts.
In the spirit of the liberal arts, the Wabash delegation is educating themselves and taking lessons from Professor Blix on how to navigate Chinese culture, including tips on handshakes – “it should be natural, not like a firm Texas handshake,” Blix said – and briefing on the Chinese way of negotiating. They will also be reading a selection from the Confucian Analects chosen by Professor Blix and becoming acquainted with the pronunciation of “pinyin,” the transliteration of Chinese characters into Roman letters.
“We’re playing it by ear,” Blix said. “Like a good Confucian official, we shall rise to whatever occasion we are called to.”