Leading Chinese university honors Wright

Posted 11/04/02, by Roland Adams

Beijing Normal recognizes international education efforts

Dartmouth President James Wright received one of the highest honors conferred by a leading Chinese higher education institution on October 10 when he was named an "Honorary Professor" at Beijing Normal University and spoke there on "Educational Exchange and International Understanding."

The event was part of a 10-day trip to Asia during which Wright spoke to Dartmouth alumni clubs in Beijing, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Wright visited Beijing Normal — which for the last 20 years has been the base for Dartmouth's Beijing Foreign Study Program — about one month after a celebration of the institution's centennial. The President of China, Jiang Zemin, spoke during the centennial celebrations, calling attention to the university's stature.

In 1982, as Associate Dean of the Faculty (for the Social Sciences) at Dartmouth, Wright helped create — with Professors Hua-yuan Mowry and Susan Blader — a collaboration with BNU that established Dartmouth's China FSP program there. In his remarks at Beijing Normal, Wright recalled, "This was one of the first programs of its kind between an American institution and the People's Republic of China."

Wright's remarks reviewed briefly the history of BNU and the history of Dartmouth, including the history of Dartmouth's links to Asia. He then turned specifically to the link between Dartmouth and BNU, and the significance of such links.

"Over the past 20 years, Dartmouth has sent about 400 of our own undergraduates to study on the BNU campus.... Since the mid-1980s, the College has also sent about a dozen recent graduates to teach English at BNU. We have also been privileged to have had 13 visiting professors from BNU teach at Dartmouth," Wright said.

He added, "When your faculty members return from a year at Dartmouth, and when our students return from BNU, they have been enriched in many ways. They will have increased their knowledge; but more important still, they will have established personal friendships that will last a lifetime and will have a tremendous impact on the future of our two countries. As we enter the 21st century, this commitment to a wider world remains an even more critical part of Dartmouth and Beijing Normal."

Wright said, "International issues remain of central concern for our institutions and our graduates.... If our students are to become leaders in an increasingly global economy, we must provide them with the experiences that prepare them for this. What is more, as we seek to prepare graduates for careers in government, law and business — to name just a few broad areas — the curriculum must introduce students to international issues and enable them to understand the world community. The most prominent institutions in this century will be those that are most heavily involved with the international exchange of both students and faculty members."

Wright speaks at Sun Valley Writers' Conference
Wright also spoke at this year's Sun Valley Writers' Conference in Idaho, addressing "The Effects of 9/11 on Colleges and Universities." He discussed the challenges that the event presented higher education institutions, including understanding the attacks and what had caused them, explaining them to students and the wider community, and complying with new government regulations requiring closer monitoring of international students while also trying to protect the civil liberties of those students.

Among other speakers at the conference were authors Jane Hamilton, Gretel Ehrlich, William Kennedy, David McCullough and W.S. Merwin; authors and journalists David Halberstam and Anne Taylor Fleming; poet Robert Pinksy; biographer Jean Strouse; and writer and civil rights leader Roger Wilkins.

- Roland Adams