UAA College of Business and Public Policy

CBPP Travels to China

In early December 2017, a UAA CBPP delegation visited two of our partner institutions in Changchun, China. The main goal was to sign an agreement for a partnership with Jilin University of Finance and Economics (JUFE), for JUFE students to complete a BA Economics degree at UAA. CBPP and JUFE personal connections go back many years, as CBPP has hosted several JUFE visiting faculty in recent years. An additional goal of the trip was to reconnect with the leadership and the faculty from Northeast Normal University (NENU), to reciprocate for their recent visit to Anchorage in summer 2017, under the leadership of Vice President Baojun Ding.

The CBPP delegation included Interim Dean Bogdan Hoanca, Professors Angie Zheng and Paul Johnson (both from the Economics and Public Policy Department), and Student Advising Center Director Allyson Berg. Over the first half of the week, the CBPP delegation had several meetings, starting with JUFE President Donglin Song, Dean Yunfeng Wang, Associate Dean Tina Wang, and International Studies Director Lucy Wang. Several JUFE students, most of them graduate, had opportunities to interact socially with the CBPP delegation over many delicious traditional Chinese meals. JUFE also hosted research presentations from two of the CBPP participants. On the last day at JUFE, the CBPP team made a presentation about CBPP programs to a large group of undergraduate students, leading into an engaging questions and answers session. Throughout the week, the patience and people skills of the native born Prof. Zheng came in very handy, as she helped the other members of the delegation with cultural references and translating. The JUFE hosts were incredibly warm and hospitable, with an incredible attention to detail in all aspects of the visit. Not only was the visit productive from a business standpoint, but it led to stronger and warmer personal connections between the CBPP delegation and the hosts.

The CBPP visitors spent the final two days of the week visiting with faculty and students from NENU. The NENU relationship is chronologically even longer than the one with JUFE. There have been both top-leadership and faculty-level visits, although not as many or as long as with the JUFE visiting faculty. More importantly, NENU is the host Chinese university of the UAA Confucius Institute (CI), with connections into other colleges at UAA, particularly in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), where CI is located. NENU hosted the CBPP delegation just as warmly as JUFE, creating opportunities to meet with faculty, administrators and students. Prof. Paul Johnson, long time UAA faculty member and a key connector for both JUFE and NENU has been instrumental in facilitating and supporting the visiting faculty exchange with JUFE, and is set on building the same level of interactions with NENU.

It is apparent that the partnership of CBPP with both universities is on a growth trajectory. Although lasting a whole week in length, this CBPP visit to China seemed very short. The delegation accomplished much, signing a key partnership agreement, promoting CBPP programs to the Chinese partners, and developing already existing relations of friendship and mutual interest into the next level. Throughout the visit, parties expressed satisfaction with the relationship, with the level of engagement, and hopes that even closer ties can be forged, involving larger numbers of faculty and students.

From all of us in CBPP, a heartfelt xie xie (thank you) to our hosts and friends in China.