Memo #261
By Joel Heng Hartse – joelhartse [at] gmail.com
New York University Shanghai recently completed its first semester of operations. Though NYU Shanghai was recently touted by National Public Radio as the first Sino-U.S. joint university, there are in fact hundreds of approved joint-degree programs and more than thirty jointly run Sino-foreign universities operating in China—and the trend seems to be growing. Other prominent institutions include Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, University of Nottingham Ningbo, United International College, and SIAS International University. Thanks to vast increases in Chinese university enrollment in the last fifteen years, economic opportunities abound for foreign institutions to partner with Chinese ones.
NYU Shanghai is following what might be called the “Nottingham model,” where the foreign university essentially dictates the entire curriculum (aside from physical education and and political courses). A number of facets of the institution are under scrutiny: academic freedom (the Washington Post has already criticized NYU’s other global campus in Abu Dhabi for allegedly sacrificing academic freedom in the name of profit), the assessment outcomes of its graduates, and the language proficiency of its students (English proficiency for its local students and Chinese proficiency for its foreign students).
Other universities eyeing expansion into China should be watching to see how NYU Shanghai fares in these areas, as should Chinese educational and government institutions considering similar partnerships. Success will depend in part on how well NYU Shanghai is able to integrate its Chinese and non-Chinese students in a truly “globalized” setting. And while academic freedom is likely to remain a concern for western China-watchers, the question of students’ future employment in China’s already-crowded white-collar work force may be of more importance for locals.
NYU is the largest, highest-profile, highest-ranked (by various bodies) and perhaps most prestigious university to date to start such a joint university in China, and how it fares economically, academically, and politically will have important implications for the continued internationalization of higher education in China.
About the Author:
Joel Heng Hartse is a PhD candidate in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, where his research focuses on second language writing, world Englishes, and sociocultural aspects of English in China. He teaches in the UBC-Ritsumeikan University Academic Exchange Program.
Links:
- “For Some NYU Students, A Sweet Deal To Study … In Shanghai,” National Public Radio, September 2013
- NYU-Shanghai, Official Homepage
- “Yale, NYU Sacrifice Academic Freedom” The Washington Post, June 2013
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See our other memos on China.
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