Reflections on China

We left mainland China and flew to Hong Kong, where we held a reception for the alumni and friends of UPEI. The reception was really well attended, with alumni from 1960 to 2010 present – fifty years of UPEI graduates in one room, together with the President, Premier Ghiz, and many others from the provincial delegation.

It was great for me to see how comprehensively the Faculty of Education was represented. Our Specialization in International Education is a popular program, and the graduates go on and teach all over the world. It was especially good for me to see some of the students who had completed their final practicum in Kenya, under my supervision. Now they are teaching in Hong Kong and in China, and are really applying all the knowledge and skills they learned through their BEd program.

Unfortunately I had to leave the reception early, and return to the airport in order to catch my flight to Nairobi, via Istanbul. On the long (11 hours!) flight to Turkey I reflected on the week in China, and determined that it had been a success.

We have the quantitative measures, of course. We had signed new or renewal partnership agreements with five major Chinese universities, and had established good relations with a fifth. Although I would not be there for them, President Alaa was going to visit two more universities in Hong Kong, and give a lecture at one of those. We had met with the Ambassador and some key staff at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, and from the Consulate in Gangzhou. We had visited two high schools and spoken to potential students about the post-secondary opportunities offered by UPEI. We had made verbal agreements for 15 student exchange scholarships in any field, but of particular interest to science students, five each to Lundong University, Ocean University of China and Hainan University.

However, little of this would have been possible without the face to face contact, the qualitative measures of success. We reciprocated visits made to UPEI over the past few years, and reinforced our belief in the partnerships we hold. We met and got to know a number of university presidents, vice-presidents international, and other senior colleagues, with conversations over lunch or as we were conducted on a campus tour. We told stories to each other, and continued to build our institutional partnerships one personal relationship at a time.

It was noted by one University president, and no doubt observed by others, that in deciding to visit China as his first international mission so President Alaa was sending a message that China was important to him and, by extension, to UPEI. That, to my mind, was the biggest success of all.