Commentary

Nottingham University Ningbo China (NUNC): A Game-Changing Model for Higher Education?

Da Hsuan Feng
University of Texas at Dallas

Preamble

Ever since on November 14, 2006 I was bestowed the great honor of NUNC's honorary professorship, many people both in the United States and China wanted to know whether NUNC is a "foreign branch campus of Nottingham." While this is a natural assumption, the answer is negative. In fact, I believe that if NUNC succeeds in its mission, it could be a game changing model for higher education. Thus, I like to take this opportunity to clarify the status of this university. I should say that any erroneous information I provided here is entirely due to me.

What is NUNC?

The name Nottingham notwithstanding, NUNC is by legal definition a Chinese university on Chinese soil. In accordance to Chinese law, it is forbidden for foreign university to establish a campus or campuses on Chinese soil. Therefore, to depict NUNC is indeed a Chinese university, the subtle difference between a foreign university campus, or "Nottingham University in Ningbo, China" and an independent Chinese university, or "Nottingham University Ningbo China" should be noticed.

While legally NUNC is autonomous , it also has a deep connection with a foreign university, namely Nottingham University.

The top administrator of a university, namely the "President" of the University, according to Chinese law, must be an individual who holds Chinese citizenship. Indeed, the first and current President of NUNC is Academician Yang Fujia . Obviously, the rules and regulations of higher education institutions established by Chinese Ministry of Education need to be adhere to.

Nottingham University in the United Kingdom

In UK, Nottingham University, a comprehensive university with about 30,000 students, is one of its top global universities. In the past decade, it has consistently been ranked in the top 10 in the country, and in the world top 100. In 2003, a current faculty member, Sir Peter Mansfield, and a former faculty member, Dr. Clive W.J. Granger, received the highest global scientific accolades, the Nobel prize, in medicine and economics, respectively.

Two Pivotal Individuals for the establishment of NUNC

As in any game changing effort, it usually is the vision of a few individuals. NUNC is no exception. In establishing of NUNC, there are two individuals who played major, if not pivotal role. Without their complimentary visions and actions, it would be difficult to envision that NUNC can be created. They are Sir Colin Campbell, Vice Chancellor, or VC, of Nottingham University in UK and Academician Yang Fujia in China. Both cannot have more different backgrounds and life experiences. Yet together, they seem to be able to dovetail their demeanors at the right time at the right place to be the change agents for higher education at the global level.

Sir Colin Campbell, Vice Chancellor of Nottingham University

In UK universities, the Vice Chancellor, or VC, is the chief executive officer (equivalent to the President in a US university). A lawyer, or barrister, by training, Sir Colin Campbell is indeed a remarkable global visionary. From what I could read about him, in the decade of the 90's, Sir Colin already instinctively recognized that in the new century, China's influence, whether it be intellectual or economic, will be globally felt. To this end, he intuitively understood the necessity of Nottingham University "going global." Yet, for Sir Colin, "going global" apparently does not simply mean making contacts with foreign universities, which at the grass roots level happen frequently anyway, or to enhance a greater number of foreign students, or to establish some presence in some foreign countries. For him, it is to alter innovatively its fundamental and internal culture of Nottingham University. To this end, he made the truly bold, unprecedented and historical recommendation in 2000 to the University Court (equivalent to the Board of Trustees of an American university) that a Chinese citizen, Academician Yang Fujia, be its Chancellor.

It should be noted that by deep and profound tradition, the ceremonial Chancellor position of any British university is usually an enormously and socially known dignitary. For example, at the extreme, the Cambridge University's Chancellor is none other than the Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Elizabeth II, the Queen of England. Indeed, for as long as British universities have existed (Oxford University began in 11th century) there have never been a Chinese citizen who holds the Chancellor position in any one of them. By appointing Academician Yang Fujia as Nottingham University's Chancellor, Sir Colin literally "broke the mode" and was able to leverage this position to begin his process of fundamentally creating an internal cultural transformation. Indeed, by extrapolation, Sir Colin has significantly expanded the role of a Chancellor!

Academician Yang Fujia

Apparently, appointing Academician Yang Fujia is precisely "what the doctor's ordered!" By "game changing," such an appointment has instant "shock value" for the media in China, UK and beyond. The world suddenly took notice that Nottingham University is doing something that is tradition altering and is making a serious attempt to trail blaze in the 21st century in creating a new paradigm for higher education.

Yang Fujia is without exaggeration one of the most visible and highly respected academicians in China. He is also one of the most well connected and well networked individuals globally. His impressive resume includes the following: He was one of the first in 1962 to be sent to a western university for advance research (Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen) after the Communists took power in 1949. He was the former President of one of China's best universities, Fudan University. During his tenure, he initiated many exciting and innovative programs, including merging one of the best medical schools in China to be a part of the university. In 1990, Yang was elected to be an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the highest academic accolade in China, for his exceptional contributions in utilizing small accelerators to study material properties. Yang takes being an Academician very seriously because he considers being one is not merely a supreme honor, but a responsibility to be executed and the opportunity to be a "change agent" for China. He is also a member of the world renowned Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization for the mitigation of weapons of mass destruction, co-chaired by two distinguished individuals: United States Former Senator Sam Nunn and the well known media mogul, Ted Turner. Finally, in the last three decades, ever since China resumed "open door policy," Academician Yang has been a visible and vocal in advocating that Chinese higher education must be proactive in globalization.

I am not sure whether there is a direct correlation or not, but since Academician Yang became Nottingham University's Chancellor, the number of Chinese students for this British University shot up significantly, from under 100 in the late 90's to now well over 1000 of today. In addition, many notable Chinese or Chinese Americans have appeared on campus. Very well known individuals such as the Honorable Chen Zhili, Councilor of the State Council of the People's Republic of China and former Minister of Education, Academician Lu Yongxiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor T. D. Lee, one of the two Chinese Americans to first win the Nobel prize appeared on campus to receive Doctor of Science or Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from Nottingham University. While the events may be considered as ceremonial, the fact that so many being honored in this manner also signaled to the world, both in perception and in reality, that a profound change in the internal culture of Nottingham University is taking place.

The Stage is Set for NUNC

Creation of NUNC require the serendipitous aligning the stars! The first is to have the above mentioned two individuals, Sir Colin, the VC and Academician Yang, the Chancellor of Nottingham University. It seems to me that both individuals complement each other exceedingly well, in ability and in vision. Their strong and sustained collaboration of is one of the alignments. Indeed, NUNC must satisfy Chinese legal boundary conditions on the one hand and, on the other hand, down the road must enhance the tremendous global reputation enjoyed by Nottingham University currently.

Obviously without the push and clear mission articulation on the UK side by Sir Colin, and by the same token, without the push, articulation, and finding the right venue and team on the Chinese side by Academician Yang on the Chinese side, especially the painstaking process of explaining that NUNC to the education authorities in China is indeed a Chinese university, it is difficult for me to see how NUNC would be here today.

Sir Colin and Academician Yang are two individuals who are almost unique to carry out such tasks in their respective countries. For example, having Academician Yang assuming the Chancellorship of Nottingham University in UK makes him the absolute perfect candidate to be the first President of NUNC. To overcome the so-called "vision without funding is a hallucination," it was critical that both Sir Colin and Academician Yang worked hand-in-hand to locate the right team in China to carry out the arduous task for finding the venue and the enormous funds that was required to jump start the process.

Indeed they did, and still do. Being one of the most famous native-sons of Ningbo, and that this city is also the hometown of a significant number of intellectual and economic giants, both in and out of China (Ningbo has one of the highest, if not the highest, number of native-sons who are Academicians), and a city government absolutely hungry in creating a new city which is both economically and intellectually strong, viable and sustainable, selection of the City to create NUNC is obvious.

Of course, the fact that 2003, the year that the concept of NUNC being articulated coincided with the year Nottingham University faculty members received two Nobel prizes, certainly did not hurt the effort!

All these culminated the old cliché that "if one had to choose between being smart or lucky, always choose lucky!"

NUNC now

Four years into its operation, NUNC is still in its infant stage. So whether this "experiment" will ultimately be successful, satisfying its metric of success, or not remains to be seen. However, the initial vectors are all pointing in the right direction.

For example, the following are now already in place.

• The ceremonial effort of bestowing the Honorary Chen Zheli the honorary degree in Nottingham University has already, according to its website (http://www.nottingham.edu.uk/China) reaped the benefit of her "agreed to launch the Chinese Policy Institute, a quality-oriented think tank which will produce top quality research and policy papers on selected topics to help build a more informed dialogue between China and the UK and to guide business and government strategies!" This is certainly an area where I believe US could take note. There is of course a Johns Hopkins University – Nanjing University Center which serves more or less the same function for nearly two decades already. It would be interesting to see whether these two Centers can get together and compare notes.
• All courses in NUNC are delivered in the English language. This makes NUNC absolutely unique in China. In my discussions with the many students there, I certainly found them to be far more fluent in the English language then students from standard Chinese universities. Also, the fact that NUNC is in an entirely Chinese environment, there is probably no danger that there is diminishing abilities of Chinese literacy of the students. Thus, down the road, I can see that there will be a new cadre of young intellectuals emerging from NUNC who are fluent not only languages of both countries, but also culture, mannerism, and inherent ways of doing business.
• As an example of the "flat world," students at NUNC and Nottingham University share the same internet resources. In the so-called post-internet era, this is a critical component for modern universities. The fact that NUNC and Nottingham University is literally "joined at the hips," makes this a particularly exciting paradigm.
• A large number of faculty members at NUNC are seconded from Nottingham University. While I was there, I met two of them and both at extraordinarily excited about contributing to this experiment.
• A teaching quality assurance system is now in place to ensure that NUNC and Nottingham University have the same standard. The necessity of such a system, as I mentioned earlier, is obvious.

Impact on Chinese higher education landscape

It is probably still too early to tell whether the NUNC experiment will be successful or not. It is certainly too early to tell whether it will impact the Chinese higher education landscape down the road. However, I am confident that if it can satisfy the merit criterions, the impact on Chinese higher education landscape can be enormous. NUNC has very different ways of doing things, compare to the vast ocean of universities in China.

As in any great effort, this was initiated by visionaries and technocrats, exemplified by Sir Colin and Academician Yang. At this moment, to see this effort grows and matures, these visionaries and technocrats must continue to guide NUNC, since it still has some distance to go before it can reach a stage of self propelling. The issue of interest here is whether there will be equally visionary leaders waiting in the wings to continue this great march. From what I have been observing in the past several years, especially in the recent visit, I am confident that those individuals do exist and can pick up when the batons are ready to be passed.

As a good chemist friend once told me, "if you just let a small drop of red ink into a beaker of clear water, it will alter its entire complexion!" In a sense, NUNC could be such a small drop of red ink!