Visit to Fudan University

Since I led the tour, I guess I get to write about bringing Mom & Dad to my "work place"... the beautiful campus of Fudan University.

This is probably a good time to explain (re-explain) why I'm even here... why is an Air Force officer in Shanghai, China getting an MBA? Well, our military places tremendous importance on education at all levels, from the actual job training, to our service academies, to post-graduate scholarship opportunities to study advanced degrees at civilian schools. This is one of those opportunities, called the Olmsted Scholarship. For more detailed information on the Olmsted program, I invite you to check out the website at http://www.olmstedfoundation.org/.

As many of you know, military leaders are brought up through the ranks, meaning that leaders are promoted from the lower ranks, and not hired from outside companies. So any qualities/training that the military wants in its leaders needs to be trained since it cannot be hired. So in a nutshell, I am here to fill the need of having some officers with some understanding of the Chinese language and who also understand the Chinese culture as China continues to become more important on the world stage. So the program sent me to language training for a year (I had no previous experience with Chinese), and then they placed me in Shanghai for two years to study at Fudan University.

If fact, here are some words from Vice President Cheney about exchanges when he spoke here at Fudan University back in 2004. He said:

"I think it's very, very important that we do everything we can to encourage exchanges and Americans living and working in China, and Chinese living and working in America. I've got people working for me on my staff who spent years in China, growing up here, or have studied here, as well. Those kinds of exchanges are very important. There are a great many Chinese students in U.S. universities. And that can only benefit both countries long-term. I think it's something to be encouraged every chance we get." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040415-1.html

Ok, now a brief introduction of Fudan University... it was founded in 1905 by a professor in search of promoting higher education. The name "Fudan" literally means "a new dawn."

Fudan was China's first private university, which allowed it to develop a very open academic environment free from the control of the government. While the university came under the control of the government in 1949 after the communist revolution, the university still maintained a reputation of having a more open learning environment.

There are currently 45,000 students enrolled here.

Fudan University is regarded as the "Number 3" university in China, behind Peking University (China's "Harvard") and Tsinghua University (China's "MIT"), both of those are in Beijing.

So what does #1, #2, and #3 mean in Chinese universities? That's kind of like "State Champs in Wyoming" or "Governor of Alaska" or even "Mountain West Conference Champions," you know, significant accomplishments but kind of meaningless unless put in a broader context. ;-)

The recently released (October 9th as a matter of fact) list of the World's Top 500 universities puts China's top three universities at #50, #56, and #113 in the world, down from last year's world rankings of #36, #40, and #85...

You can check out the new list here: http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/fullrankings/
So there you have it, Fudan is currently ranked #113 in the world for what that's worth...

University selection here in China is quite a bit different than what we are used to back in the States. Here, all high school seniors are ranked ordered and the top seniors are offered admission to Peking University, then the next top seniors are offered (or ordered!) to go to Tsinghua, then the next to Fudan and on down the list. So in this way the top schools maintain their top status by being guaranteed of to get the top students.

So now for some pictures from around campus:

Here's the statue of Mao Zedong. I say "the" statue and not "a" statue because every university in China has a large statue of Mao prominently placed on the campus. This statue is unique because it is the only statue of Mao without him raising his right arm, instead both hands are placed behind his back... people here say in respect to Fudan's independent academic nature.


The inscription below the statue that the red sign is blocking is of Mao's name and the the dates of his life. I found it interesting that this is obviously not maintained. You can hardly see his name and just barely see the dates of his life. Doesn't look like too many people care about Chairman Mao here on campus these days...


Some other views of the campus grounds...


Private cars are not allowed to be driven on campus.


A picture of the main administration building on campus:


You can see the campus gymnasium there on the left:


So how do you know when an institution has influence? How about when an elevated highway is built around Shanghai but the university alumni protest and demand that a tunnel is built underneath the campus instead.

So here you can see as the elevated highway come down off its bridge into the tunnel:

...and here you can see the highway tunnel underneath the the main road on campus:

It's a beautiful campus, but the two nicest buildings on campus are the MBA buildings and the Center for American Studies.

You should know about Fudan University's Center for American Studies... why? Because you paid for it! This beautiful building was completely funded by U.S. taxpayer money for promoting the study of American politics in China. There is a foundation in D.C. that is responsible for the continued funding of the building and programs, as well as for the curriculum taught here.

Remember that 2004 visit by VP Cheney? Yup, that was made here at the Center for American Studies.

The other ultra-modern building on campus is the MBA building. Through various partnerships with other schools, there are actually nine different MBA or EMBA programs taught here at Fudan.

Here's a sign next to the elevator showing several of the MBA programs:

The three "big" MBA programs are:

Fudan's MBA program, that is a joint venture with the MIT Sloan school of management. Grads here get an MBA from Fudan and a certificate from MIT Sloan.

The Executive MBA from Washington University's Olin School of Management. This degree is ranked #7 in the world's EMBA programs. The professors fly from St. Louis to teach a four-day (Friday-Monday) seminar each month. Do that 18 times, go to St. Louis for two weeks for a capstone course, and pay your $60,000 and you have yourself one of the top EMBAs.

The University of Hong Kong - Fudan University (HKU-FDU) MBA program
This is my program. It is actually a University of Hong Kong MBA that is taught at Fudan, so when (if!) I graduate from the program next summer I will get an MBA from the University of Hong Kong and a certificate from Fudan University. Most of my classes are taught by HKU professors who fly up to Shanghai to teach the classes.

Remember those world university rankings I mentioned before? Well, HKU comes in at #26 in those rankings. It's a beautiful school and I still need to blog about my class trip this past August with my MBA classmates to visit the University of Hong Kong.

And HKU's MBA program? It was recently ranked #58 in the world MBA programs by the Economist: http://mba.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=2008rankings. I probably wouldn't put too much credibility into these rankings since they don't have Wharton or Harvard in the Top 10, but it is a step in getting the Asia MBA programs some recognition. I'll talk more about the HKU MBA program when I get around to blogging about the trip to Hong Kong... suffice it to say for now that there are a lot of interesting (very good) developments going on.

At any rate, here's a picture outside one of my classrooms at Fudan:

Hopefully you can tell that it is indeed a very modern building. I can't remember what kind of building I thought I would be meeting in when I applied to Fudan University, but I was blown away by how nice this building is.

Well that's about it. Thanks for coming to "work" with me!