Ohio University hopes to increase its international presence by forging a bond with another university willing to form connections on the other side of the globe.
The vice president, associate dean and three professors from Beijing International Studies University visited OU to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to promote an academic partnership between the two universities.
Lorna Jean Edmonds, vice provost of global affairs, said she worked hard to make the ceremony memorable for OU’s international guests and encourage a sustainable partnership.
“If they’ve decided to take the time to come learn about us, we’re going to make that experience unforgettable, no matter how big or small the institution is,” Edmonds said.
The memorandum, signed Oct. 15, is the culmination of a relationship between Barbara Trube, OU’s professor of early childhood education, and Rong Yan, a professor at BISU, that began in 2001.
“We just saw that there were potential relationships or networks that could be established that would be mutually beneficial,” Trube said.
Trube said she began working with Yan when she was invited to work with children in Beijing in 2001 as a part of BISU’s international outreach mission.
Trube and Yan began exchanging teaching strategies and ideas via email.
In 2002, Trube made her first trip to Beijing to study the way they teach young children. She made 14 trips between 2002 and 2009 to China to work with students in kindergarten through the eighth grade.
Yan also spent the 2009-2010 academic year as a visiting professor in the Patton College of Education.
Trube said he enjoyed being at OU, and worked with BISU administrators to continue the relationship between the universities.
“He loves Ohio University,” Trube said. “He considers himself a Bobcat.”
By teaching classes that reached 80 students in their developmental ages, Trube said she learned how to respect the individual student while working in a cooperative learning environment.
“Our issues in education are very similar to the same issues in education that the Chinese are facing,” Trube said.
Because of BISU’s emphasis on linguistics, Trube said she began to include the College of Arts and Sciences and other interested programs in discussions to develop the memorandum.
One of the first collaborations between OU and BISU will be an online course in Business English offered by OU, said Dawn Bikowski, director of OU’s English Language Improvement Program in the linguistics department.
The course is only in the beginning stages, but Bikowski said she already sent a proposal and a mockup course to BISU based on their discussions during the memorandum signing.
“(The course is) able to use our university expertise at one of our partner institutions,” Bikowski said. “I think it’s a good way for our university to begin the collaboration.”
Bikowski said she also discussed the possibility of sending OU faculty to Beijing to help teach the class once it’s established.
A timeline for the online course hasn’t been decided, but Bikowski said she has a personal goal of having it running by summer or fall 2014.
“(The memorandum) makes people think about China and makes people think about Ohio as an international institution,” she said.
dK123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
