Will Bryant’s ‘bridge’ to China pay off locally?

CULTURAL EXCHANGE: Bryant seniors Leiyan Li, left, and Jiwei
CULTURAL EXCHANGE: Bryant seniors Leiyan Li, left, and Jiwei "Vince" Ma, both from China, in front of the university's archway in Smithfield. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

About 12 years ago, Bryant University officials began working on developing educational exchanges with China, which was showing signs of explosive economic growth.

The school already had made the decision it wanted to have an international presence. The question then was, how?

“We’re not big enough as an institution to cover the world equally, and so, what we’ve got to do is pick and choose. Let’s pick China,” President Ronald K. Machtley recalled telling university colleagues at the time.

Establishment of the U.S.-China Institute on the school’s Smithfield campus followed in 2005, and then, a year later, the Confucius Institute.

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This fall, the school made its strongest connection to China to date with the launching of “Bryant Zhuhai” on the Beijing Institute of Technology’s campus in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai. One hundred and sixty Chinese students are studying a Bryant curriculum in English.

“My philosophy is, if you’re really going to be immersed in educating students in your culture, your business format and your educational experience, you have to be on the ground in an academic setting that you control and develop in China and in the United States,” Machtley said. Bryant did not have to pay construction costs for the Zhuhai campus, but will provide annual funding for instructor salaries.

If it succeeds, the Zhuhai connection could move Bryant closer to raising money needed for a long-planned construction on its local campus of a replica of a piece of Beijing’s Shu Fang Zhai, or Forbidden City.

The project, first announced in May 2008, could cement Bryant’s developing Chinese connections and academic reputation in Asia, but with an estimated $15 million price tag, it won’t come cheaply. Machtley sees the Forbidden City project as an integral part of a “bridge” linking Bryant and Zhuhai, through immersion of students here in Chinese culture and language in preparation for studying in China.

It’s a grand vision that also may get a boost from a developing sister-city relationship between Providence and Zhuhai.

“We imagine that Bryant Zhuhai is going to grow; the Beijing Institute of Technology at Zhuhai is going to grow, Zhuhai [itself] is going to grow. We want to make sure we keep ties with them as an end market for our products,” Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza told Providence Business News after a recent visit to Zhuhai with Machtley.

‘THE SAME VISION’

Machtley says the Zhuhai connection that could benefit both local businesses and students was sparked six years ago when Chinese officials first approached him.

“We were looking for a partner and had been talking to a university in China to do a joint venture,” explained Machtley, now in his 20th year as president. “I always thought that I’d want to be in Shanghai, Beijing, one of the big cities. And having been there, I thought, ‘This is where the action is.’ ”

But Zhuhai officials and Chinese educators had other ideas.

“We had breakfast, and they shared that they had the same vision we had: They wanted to create the best university in China,” he said.

Attracted to the “Bryant brand” of delivering “rigorous” business programs that integrate theory with real-world practice, Machtley said, leaders at the BIT, government officials in Zhuhai, and Chinese businessmen proposed a possible collaboration: a joint school in Zhuhai.

Today, Machtley says, BIT in Zhuhai is home to 26,000 students.

Machtley and Bryant are betting that the Chinese connection, not only to Zhuhai but through the future Forbidden City replica project in Smithfield, will enhance the university’s academic reputation globally and boost employment opportunities for its graduates.

“There’s a huge amount of business down there, so our graduates from the [Zhuhai] school will have great opportunities,” Machtley said, “more so than Shanghai, where there [are] lots of people, lots of schools and it’s not easy to get a job.”

MISSION-DRIVEN

Some 230 international joint ventures or university branches are set up around the world, according to the Cross Border Education Research Team at the University of Albany.

Karin Fischer, senior writer for the Washington, D.C.-based Chronicle of Higher Education, says Bryant’s quest to establish a school in Zhuhai is unusual, and not guaranteed to enhance the university’s allure to prospective students.

“The perceived benefits are prestige, money and access to students who might not be able to afford to go overseas to study but are willing to pay a premium for an American degree,” said Fischer. “I say ‘perceived’ because I think the jury’s still out when it comes to outcomes.”

New York University, one of the most successful institutions in crafting an identity as a “global” university, has two relatively new foreign campuses, in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, she said.

“Finding the recruitment sweet spot for these campuses can be challenging,” she noted. “Do you have the right academic programs? How do you market them in a country where the college-admission system is very different?”

Jan Berris, vice president of the New York City-based National Committee on United States-China Relations, said in an email that Bryant is a leader amongst the thousands of American educational institutions forging academic and cultural relationships with China.

Calling him an “entrepreneurial president,” Berris said that Machtley “understands the importance of broadening his students’ horizons and exposing them [and the faculty] to a country that, like the United States, is a crucial actor in today’s world.”

Machtley says that while the goal is to grow Bryant Zhuhai to a campus of 4,000, with 20 percent of the student body being international or from the United States, and the rest being Chinese, the benefits of Bryant Zhuhai and the cross-continental connection eventually with the Forbidden City project back in Smithfield are tied to the university’s mission.

In 2010, trustees unanimously approved Bryant’s Vision 20/20 strategic plan, which sets international education as a goal. The intent is to “differentiate” Bryant from its peers, while giving students “a superior global perspective that positions them for success and makes them highly sought after in their professions,” the plan stated.

Bryant currently has a 98.6 job placement rate for its graduates, he said. What’s more, 81 percent of 2014 Bryant graduates have jobs with some global component, and their ability to meet that need makes them highly sought after, Machtley said.

Part of China’s interest in the Bryant curriculum that Bryant Zhuhai courses mirror, say Bryant officials, is the experiential approach to education, which emphasizes teamwork and active engagement as opposed to rote memorization.

Leiyan Li, a Bryant senior who has spent 2½ years at Bryant and plans to return to Wuhan, China, to look for a job in accounting, attests to this.

In the United States, Li said she is encouraged to speak up in class as opposed to just absorbing lectures, and has developed strong communication skills while working independently, as well as in teams.

“When I get back to China I will look for more opportunities for speaking up,” she said. “It is a way of polishing my skills.”

TOURISM AND SEAFOOD

It was the relationships fostered in China by Machtley and Hong Yang, Bryant’s vice president of international affairs, that sparked Elorza’s interest in Zhuhai.

Providence has already cultivated sister-city relationships with Praia in Cape Verde, Florence, Italy, and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, said Evan England, the mayor’s spokesman, and is developing one with Antigua, Guatemala. An executive order affirming the latest relationship with Zhuhai is expected soon, he said.

Tourism and seafood imports and exports are key economic drivers in both Rhode Island and Zhuhai, which is poised for growth to 5 million people in the next decade. A bridge being built between Hong Kong and Zhuhai is expected to increase economic development, Elorza said.

“Everywhere you drive in Zhuhai there is development,” added Elorza. “It is really impressive.”

Besides the opportunity for high school student exchanges between the cities of Zhuhai and Providence, the mayor said, after meeting Zhuhai officials earlier this fall he sensed that “they’re very interested in our seafood and tourism. So we want to plan some trade missions.”

Elorza and Huang say they also pitched to Zhuhai officials Providence’s vibrant food-innovation industry, the university research capacity here, the city’s “creative economy,” and even the potential for biomedical facilities to locate in the I-195 corridor, since the Chinese have an interest in holistic treatment for their aging population.

“When we mentioned food and seafood, we could see their eyes light up,” Elorza said.

Elorza said he has been working with Kathy Therieau, director of international trade programs for the R.I. Commerce Corp., a connection Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor confirmed.

International trade and promoting companies that export to China and abroad are part of a “continuous” effort, Pryor said.

“China is the No. 1 country we export seafood to and there’s been an increase” in the value of $8 million, from just under $3.8 million in 2012 to $11.8 million in 2014, he said. “China is an enormously important market.”

Besides meeting in the last several months with Elorza and a delegation from Zhuhai, Pryor said Commerce R.I. recently led a trade mission to Taiwan and South Korea.

Rhode Island companies such as the Cooley Group of Pawtucket, which makes high-end commercial roofing products and membranes, and Banneker Industries in North Smithfield, a logistics company, have targeted the Chinese market and Taiwan, Pryor said.

While the connection with Zhuhai is new, the Elorza administration says, it has long-term potential to help improve the city and state’s economic base by attracting investment and building partnerships with investors.

Already some businesses in the city are exploring potential economic development in Zhuhai, England added, though he declined to name the firms.

“We have connected several Providence entities with contacts developed in Zhuhai in the food, design and education industries,” England said.

BRIDGE BUILDING

As the Providence/Zhuhai link evolves, Machtley remains focused on raising money for the Forbidden City project and ensuring that Bryant Zhuhai develops according to plan.

The U.S.-China Institute on Bryant’s campus fosters cultural experiences for faculty and students, and provides China-related services to businesses and communities. The institute will jointly host a forum on Nov. 12-13 with the Association of International Education Administrators on strategies for how higher education engages with South and East Asia.

The campus is also home to the Confucius Institute, which furthers U.S.-China exchanges for K-12 students and communities across New England.

Both institutes would be brought together within the replica of a piece of the Forbidden City. When the latter project was first announced in 2008, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush was reportedly involved in efforts to have a full-scale version of the building constructed in China, then disassembled and shipped to Smithfield, where it was to be reconstructed. That is still the plan, if the school can raise needed funds.

When asked why the project has taken so long to come to fruition, Machtley said only that funds were not available and priorities were “reordered” to delay that project. Bryant spokeswoman Elizabeth O’Neil later said that since government approval and partnerships were in place to go forward with Bryant Zhuhai, that took precedence. Unlike the Forbidden City project, Chinese partners, including private investors, funded all of the capital costs for Bryant Zhuhai.

The mission-driven nature of the “bridge” the university is trying to build to connect the two cultures will be strong enough to encourage enough donors to support the Forbidden City project, Machtley predicted. Chinese cultural groups are among those that have contributed, though the Bryant president declined to say how much has been raised so far for the project.

Alberto J. LaGreca, Jr., a Smithfield Town Council member and former Bryant trustee, says the two projects, Bryant Zhuhai and the replica of the piece of the Forbidden City, support the new reality of a global economy.

“It’s going to benefit our country in the long run,” he said of the China-U.S. connection Bryant is a part of, “[providing] an influx of intelligent people that understand China and the United States.” •

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