Harvard Hosts Chinese Scholars

Harvard played host to an international education summit over the weekend, setting up a two-day colloquium between seven presidents from China's leading universities and five from U.S. universities.

In the event, characterized by President Neil L. Rudenstine as "intense in a good sense," the academic leaders discussed fundraising, academic planning, admissions and computer technology in education.

Meeting in the Fogg Art Museum, officials from both sides gave presentations on their universities. In addition to the Harvard administrators, leaders from the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Virginia, Duke and M.I.T. took part in the chance to meet with their Chinese counterparts.

"China's universities are going to be among the most important in the world in the next century," said China expert and Ford Professor of the Social Sciences Ezra F. Vogel, who participated in the conference. "It was an extraordinarily successful meeting."

Vogel described the meeting as a significant step in improving Sino-American relations, rather than a harbinger of progress for intellectual freedom in China, since the Chinese have far more academic autonomy than Americans realize.

Also, meetings like the one held at Harvard will help American universities welcome the current flood of students from China, Vogel said.

"They seemed interested in every subject discussed," said Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67, who gave a presentation on information technology. "They were especially gratified to get a first-hand account of how a number of U.S. presidents cope with a set of challenges similar to the ones that they are facing."

Meanwhile, American admissions, financial aid and fundraising policies may give the Chinese leaders new ideas about how best to administer their universities.

Institutions of higher learning in China are adapting to changes within the People's Republic, including a drastic curtailing of government funding for higher education. As a result, the Chinese schools have had to begin fundraising and raising tuition.

"They are very open to developments on the outside," Vogel said.

The Chinese administrators also had the opportunity to discuss the role of research universities in education, looking at current trends in academia and discussing how to structure academic departments.

The conference concluded with a cocktail party and dinner hosted by Rudenstine and his wife, Angelica Zander Rudenstine, in the courtyard of the Fogg.

The conference comes just as Harvard has been increasing its own role in the Far East steadily over the last few years.

Fineberg, in fact, just returned from a 10-day jaunt that took him to Taipei, Hong Kong and Kyoto.

In Hong Kong, Fineberg met with members of the advisory committee on Harvard's newly formed Asia Center, including Robert G. Stone Jr. '45, a member of the Harvard Corporation, the University's most important governing body.

The committee members discussed the center's academic focus, contemplating broadening its mission to examine Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia and India.

The weekend conference at Harvard was the first such to take place between academic leaders from the U.S. and China. Vogel predicted that future meetings between academic heads from the two countries would probably be smaller and focus on single, specific issues facing their schools.

Such meetings will probably next be held in China, Vogel added.

The Chinese contingent included the leaders of Peking University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong, Tsinghua University and Xian Jiaotong.