Partnership with China's Peking University is More than an Exchange Program

Wellesley College student Audrey Wozniak '14 is traveling with a group of students and administrators currently in Beijing for the inaugural Women World Partners institute (which I blogged about last week). Here, Audrey writes about the program and why it's more than just "another exchange program."

On the most superficial level, the new partnership between Wellesley College and Peking University may appear to be yet another archetypal college exchange program. Forty students and ten days of academic exchange in Beijing led by faculty leaders from both schools is perhaps not a radical gesture, especially for two of the world’s most esteemed institutions of higher learning. What makes the Wellesley College-Peking University Partnership for Women’s Leadership both timely and unprecedented, however, is its mission to empower a new generation of female leaders in a global era, as well as the novel approach it takes to fulfill that mission.

The academic program capitalizes on the teaching model of the Madeleine K. Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College, which celebrates its fifth year next January. For this year’s topic, “Challenges of an Urban Future”, students are working in teams of six to tackle issues ranging from affordable housing to preserving cultural heritage, public health to education and infrastructure. The students attend daily presentations by leading scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, philosophy, biology, and art, with titles such as “The Political Economy and Political Ecology of Food” and “The Impact of Urbanization on Wildlife Preservation, Especially Pandas.” The program then culminates in “Women’s Leadership: Making a Difference in the World,” an all-day summit featuring presentations from outstanding female global leaders from myriad fields, including US astronaut Pamela Melroy and Chen Zhili, Vice Chairman of the 11th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in China.

This latest initiative of Wellesley derives strength from the conviction that addressing international issues requires the multidisciplinary worldview intrinsic to a liberal arts education. Under the program’s pedagogical method, the political scientist must consult the poet, and the engineer must consult the economist. In considering the diverse approach each takes to the same problem, students truly attain a global perspective and are ideally equipped to identify viable solutions. Equally essential to the program is its dedication to training the next generation of women for leadership in an increasingly interconnected world. In the words of Secretary Albright, the collaborations between students from disparate fields of study and experiences, as well as instruction from academics and global leaders alike, ensure that “women understand global affairs through practical leadership and thus see how they can apply solutions to global issues.”

Wellesley's latest women's leadership education campaign in collaboration with PKU furthers the existing Albright Institute mission and model abroad, but with an addendum: global solutions can only be achieved through partnership. Says Andrew Shennan, Provost and Dean of Wellesley College, “Potential global leaders are not only defined by their origins but also by their engagement with their world.”

In expanding the program beyond Wellesley, the College has recognized the need to instill the value of cooperation in future world leaders for effecting meaningful changes and has begun to build the bridges to do so. The coming-together of students from two different institutions to address a common problem redefines the classroom experience; the knowledge they gain from each other and their environment, the relationships they build as they struggle toward a common goal, and the discoveries they make about themselves and their world is as (if not more) valuable than the information the lecturer imparts. In an age when unilateral decision-making is an impossibility, collaboration is more critical than it has ever been before.

"The U.S.-China relationship is the most important strategic relationship in the 21st century," Secretary Albright told Wellesley and PKU students at the academic program in Beijing on Saturday, June 8. "The U.S. cannot, and China cannot, solve these problems alone." Her meeting to discuss the institutional partnership with PKU administrators and faculty later that day coincided with the first meeting of U.S. president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping in California. At the same time, the Wellesley-PKU partnership is Peking University's first program to educate women for global leadership, and speaks to fact that the concept of womanhood and women's roles in China and in the world is being challenged and redefined.

The Wellesley College press release announcing the Wellesley-PKU Partnership hints that the collaboration is but the first in a series Wellesley plans to make with institutions around the world under the college’s “Women World Partners” initiative. If the women gathered for Saturday’s conference in Beijing have anything to say about it, the Wellesley-PKU program will be but a first step on the path to educating and connecting a worldwide network of female global leaders.

Wellesley College Student Audrey Wozniak '14 is a Music and East Asian studies major from Austin, Texas.