As part of the Lally’s strategic initiative to build global innovation partners, Dean David Gautschi travelled to China March 7 – 14 to meet with leaders at universities and economic development institutions. Dean Gautschi visited Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Wuhan, and met with over 400 students and faculty at 5 universities.
Hongda Zhu; Hao Zhao; Dean David Gautschi; Shihe Zhu, President of TIUC; Jing Chen, Director of International Advancement
As part of the Lally School’s strategic initiative to build global innovation partners, Dean David Gautschi travelled to China March 7 – 14 to meet with leaders at universities and economic development institutions. Dean Gautschi visited Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Wuhan, accompanied by Professor Hao Zhao and Hongda Zhu MBA ’10.
The Lally team met with over 400 students and faculty at five universities, including Zhejiang University, Tianjin Institute of Urban Construction (TIUC), Renmin University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), and Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications. The Lally delegation also met with senior executives at the Tianjin Economic Development Authority (TEDA), Northern China’s first state-sponsored economic development area for high-tech industry.
“Of the five trips I have made to China since I have been at RPI, this was unquestionably the most successful,” said Gautschi. “The response from students we met has been uniformly enthusiastic. Our relationships with the faculty of Renmin and Zhejiang [where Lally has established formal academic partnerships] have reached the point where we have real collaboration starting. Our reputation both at the Institute level and at the Lally School level appears to be rising significantly.”
China is a key player in today’s global economy, and is the U.S.’s second largest international trade partner after Canada. Building strategic partnerships with Chinese educational and business institutions is part of Lally’s long term strategy and its commitment to training global business leaders of the future. Gautschi noted: “The current global economic recession and the financial crisis have pushed China into a prominent role that will very likely transform it into an even stronger player among the major political economies of the 21st century. We are very likely at a turning point that should encourage Americans, in particular, to re-double their efforts to learn about this remarkable and rapidly emerging phenomenon.”
Dean Gautschi made personal connections with faculty, students and executives at each location. Audiences engaged the Dean in lively dialogues following his presentation on “Perspectives on the Global Financial Crisis and the Role of the Business School.” At each stop, there was a great deal of interest in fostering educational exchanges with the Lally School due to its strengths in technology entrepreneurship and business innovation.
In Tianjin, the Lally delegation visited the Tianjin Institute of Urban Construction (TIUC), where Dr. Shihe Zhu, President of the TIUC, and Dean Gautschi announced the launch of the “Summer Cultural Institute,” an exchange program that Lally will host on the Rensselaer campus beginning this summer. Over 20 TIUC undergraduate students will join with students from other institutes from around the globe to learn more about U.S. culture, American business, and the U.S. style of classroom education.
Also in Tianjin, the Dean met with representatives of Nankai University and TEDA College in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA). TEDA is Northern China’s first state-sponsored economic development zone, and is now part of the larger Tianjin Binhai New Area investment zone. Major technology multinationals such as Motorola, Toyota and Samsung have set up headquarters in this area. Lally has hosted TEDA Executive Education exchanges in the past. Dean Gautschi met with key leaders, including Lally School alumnus, Wang Xinfeng ‘04, a senior executive of the TEDA management team, in anticipation of continuing TEDA Executive programs at the Lally School.
In Hangzhou, Dean Gautschi visited Zhejiang University (“Zheda”), one of the China’s oldest and most prestigious institutions. Zhejiang has signed a five-year agreement with the Lally School to strengthen the global reach of both partners’ entrepreneurial business and technology programs. The core of the agreement is a research collaboration linking Zhejiang and Lally’s Severino Center for Technological Research. In a grand ceremony, Dean Gautschi and Zhejiang School of Management’s Executive Dean Wang unveiled the Lally/Rensselaer office in the Zhejiang Center for Entrepreneurship Research. Zhejiang, one of the top five universities in China, also participates in collaborations with Harvard University and Stanford University.
In Wuhan, the Dean visited Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) another leading Chinese university. He met with Dean Jinlong Zhang, Dean of Management School at HUST, to discuss potential collaborations between HUST and Lally.
At the final stop in Beijing, Dean Gautschi spoke with students at Renmin University, one of China’s top universities located in the heart of the city. At the Renmin School of Business, currently ranked 3rd in China, he met with Dean Zhihong Yi and Associate Dean Jiye Mao to formalize an agreement for educational exchanges between Renmin and the Lally School. Renmin’s curriculum is taught in English and in Mandarin, and the University also offers an International MBA program and an International Summer School in English.
On Saturday morning in Beijing, the Dean addressed an audience of about 65 students at Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, which specializes in engineering and computer science.
The Lally delegation also contacted established corporate partners. China Three Gorges Project Corporation ( CTGPC) in Yichang, Hubei Province, China, manages the Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze River and houses the largest hydroelectric power station in the world. CTGPC has sponsored executive educational exchanges at the Lally School and hopes to have a group of managers return to the Lally School in the 2009-2010 academic year.
The Dean ended his trip at a dinner celebration with about 20 Lally and Rensselaer alumni and friends in Beijing. All were eager to learn of news from Rensselaer and about The Lally School. Dean Gautschi reported a fond farewell from his alumni hosts: “We concluded the evening by joining hands and singing our alma mater, “Here’s to Old RPI”! (This may become a karaoke favorite in China!)”