Gustavus President Jack Ohle will be visiting the United International College (UIC) in Zhuhai, China this coming Nov. 12 to the 19. Zuhai is located in the southern seacoast region of Guandong Province.

“President and Kris Ohle are leaving on Friday as part of a delegation from other colleges in the Minnesota Private College Council (MPCC) who have an exchange agreement with UIC. President Ohle will be one of the speakers at the 2010 MPCC-UIC Presidential Lecture Series and Sino-American Liberal Arts Educational Conference,” Director of CICE Carolyn O’Grady said.

The United International College is the first liberal arts college of its kind in China. It opened fall of 2005 and offers 16 undergraduate programs to more than 4,000 students. Gustavus has been in exchange with UIC since 2007, where a four-year contract agreement was made. The other colleges involved in the partnership are Concordia/Moorhead, Augsburg, St. Scholastica and Hamline.

UIC is one of the few schools on China’s mainland that is taught entirely in English, with an international focus. The focus isn’t about memorizing English, but to teach the students the cultural contexts of what they are learning, as well. Gustavus students, through the partnership, often get the chance to teach at UIC. A recent graduate of Gustavus is a TA in the English Learning Center at UIC. “We run clubs to expose UIC students to Western Culture, and mine is the Rock Music Club. Others include the Movie Club, Trivia Club, etc. In a lot of ways we are here to be Western around the students in order to add to the English speaking atmosphere,” Steve Palmer ‘10 said.

The greatest challenge for the students of UIC is the language barrier. The intelligence of the students enrolled is never the issue; it’s being able to communicate what they want. To encourage the students’ progress, “We run special tutorials and activities to help them have more practice and application of English,” Palmer said.

Gustavus professors have also visited UIC. Math and Computer Science Professor Michael Hvidsten spent 2009-10 teaching in Zhuhai. Hvidsten learned a lot about China’s culture. “[It was a good experience] in terms of opening your mind to what’s out there. There are parts of their culture that are so much better than ours, and vice versa,” he said.

His students at UIC had many different qualities than American students. Repetition is a focus in China’s secondary schools, and that skill carries through to college. The students were very hard working and focused and thankful for any help Hvidsten could provide them. However, their biggest downfall was a lack of creativity that comes with a repetition-based schooling. “There are some big challenges to make education [in China] better. Liberal arts could be helpful for them, but it’s just one tiny school,” Hvidsten said.

Gustavus students are also able to study abroad through the partnership with UIC.

Greg Boone ’09 spent the fall of his senior year studying at UIC. “It’s a great place to spend a semester, in a city that is authentically Chinese. If you leave the campus and take the bus to the city, you’ll see a lot of elements of Chinese culture I think it could be easy to miss if you were in a bigger city like Beijing,” he said. “It’s a great place to be to learn about China, its people and culture. Its unique mission among Chinese universities really shows through, and though it is at times hard to appreciate, the college’s unique mission makes it absolutely fascinating.”

Currently, Boone is teaching in Ukraine. Spending a semester in China and four years at a liberal arts college prepared him to work abroad after graduation. “It’s an incredible thing to have a liberal arts education and be able to do things like work abroad for a couple years, then change your career and do something entirely different and repeat that cycle or a similar one a few times,” Boone said.

Besides sending Gustavus professors, graduates and students to UIC, UIC sends their students here to be exposed to American culture. This past summer, 16 students from UIC stayed on campus for a month- long visit. The students took “Introduction to Intercollegiate Forensics” from Professor of Communication Studies Phil Voight, where the focus was to hone their English skills as well as their public speaking and debate techniques. Along with this, the students went on many field trips, including Valleyfair, camping on the Mississippi, the Mall of America and a St. Paul Saints game.

Junior Russian Studies Major Ruby Mojarro worked with the students this summer. “It was interesting to see how different they were from American students, but also interesting to see how similar we are to each other. One of the biggest struggles was probably getting them to open up to the workers more and showing them that we are students just like them. Of course, the language barrier at the very beginning of their stay was a struggle, as well,” Mojarro said.

Any students interested in this unique exchange opportunity can contact the Study Abroad Office located in the International Center.

“A liberal arts college in China is so fascinating. If you can take the spirit of the liberal arts and replicate it in a place with such restricted personal freedoms, it isn’t an easy task, but it could have some tremendous outcomes for that country and for the world,” Boone said.