West Bend Daily News – September 27, 2011
“UW Professor to Speak on Higher Education in China”
University of Wisconsin scholar Gilles Bousquet will speak about the lessons Wisconsin can take from China’s investment in higher education and its cultural tradition of stressing the importance of higher education on Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-Washington County.
Reflecting on recent trips to China, Bousquet urges Wisconsin students to learn a language like Chinese or travel to a place like China. He emphasizes that Americans are now global citizens and can benefit from exposure to other cultures.
Bousquet is dean of the Division of International Studies, vice provost for globalization, director of the International Institute, special assistant to the chancellor for international engagement, and Pickard-Bascom professor of French at UW-Madison.
According to Bousquet, the Chinese educational system is profound and impressive and cause to reflect on our own educational system.
“On my most recent trip to China, the delegation I led visited 11 campuses, ranging from a teaching hospital in Beijing to the highly-regarded comprehensive Fudan University in Shanghai to the sparkling new Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,” said Bousquet. “At every single campus I toured, I was impressed – indeed sometimes overwhelmed- by the investment in higher education under way in China. These universities are hiring professors, adding new campuses, and building new programs. They are looking to the United States for ideas and collaborations because we are respected and admired for our higher education system. The question I now grapple with is: do we ourselves respect and admire this system?”