Phillips Academy and China seek to enhance and expand their long-fostered educational ties

Yi-Chen Zhang ’82 stepped before the crowd of alumni, parents, and prospective students gathered last November for an Andover-hosted reception in Beijing and extolled the virtues of his former American high school. Head of School Barbara Landis Chase and a select group of Academy representatives—in the midst of a two-week PA tour of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—listened attentively as Zhang delivered his message in Chinese. Afterward, the head of school asked Zhang for a translation.

“He told me he had talked about the fact that Andover was a really, really wonderful place for the right kind of student,” says Chase, “for a student who really wants to work hard, who has a desire to live in a community of great diversity. I think, most important, he thought that people in China and around the world, especially today, need to be reminded that the moral implications of what you do are increasingly important in the world. That is one of the things he remembered Andover doing best—helping students realize the moral perspective of everything they do—and that, for me, was very, very meaningful.”

Chase notes that Zhang—and X.D. Yang ’83, who hosted a similar reception a few nights later in Shanghai—were at Andover less than one full school year, arriving partway into the fall term. Yet, the Academy had an effect on these men, so much so they have stepped up to serve as representatives of Andover.

“In eight or nine months, Andover made an impact,” says Chase.

A similarly positive impression, one might infer, was made on Sir Chentung Liang Cheng, a Chinese student at the Academy in the late 1800s. Although PA students from China first enrolled in the 19th century, it was in the early 20th century that numbers began to grow more noticeably. That growth came under the leadership of Headmaster Alfred Stearns, in part due to the influence of Cheng, who went on to become China’s ambassador to the United States.

Writing in 1920, Stearns noted that “China is not the only gainer by this intimate contact of East and West. Nothing could be better…than this free mingling during impressionable years of the youth of these two great nations. A unique opportunity is offered this old American school to aid in breaking down those barriers of race prejudice and selfish provincialism that keep nations and men from accepting a true human brotherhood.”

Although half a world apart, Phillips Academy and China have continued to foster their brotherhood. In both the current and previous academic years, Andover welcomed six students from the People’s Republic of China and another 16 from Hong Kong. And in the two prior academic years, a total of 10 students attended from the PRC, and 27 attended from Hong Kong.

The relationship shared today between PA and China, though, is about more than just overseas students coming to learn at Andover. In the 1962–1963 academic year, PA was the setting for Chinese language courses offered through an Asian studies organization and funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. In the 1980s, the Academy officially made Chinese language classes a part of its curriculum. That same decade, PA and China’s Harbin Institute of Technology signed an agreement to create an exchange program, a connection encouraged in the 1970s by George H.W. Bush ’42, who at the time served as chief of the United States Liaison Office in the PRC.

A half-dozen years ago, PA entered into cooperative agreements with two other schools in China, Datong High School in Shanghai and the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China in Beijing. These connections have resulted in exchange programs for faculty and students, but Peter Merrill, who heads up PA’s Division of World Languages, says the potential for closer and more beneficial ties exists. A newly launched initiative, of which Chase and company’s November visit was step one, calls for the participating schools to get to know one another in an educational context. The goal, says Merrill, is to determine new efforts in which PA and its Chinese peer schools might collaborate.

While Chase and others in her party were in China to assess and nurture existing partnerships with Datong and Renmin high schools, the trip also was about researching new opportunities for collaboration. “We visited other institutions with which we don’t currently have partnerships,” says Chase, “and also visited with various city officials, so we can assess what we’re already doing in China and what we might be able to do to deepen the relationship and increase the impact both ways.”

In December, Temba Maqubela, Andover’s dean of faculty and assistant head for academics, led a follow-up trip. That visit—which also included Merrill and fellow PA faculty members Tom Hodgson, Trish Russell, Sue Buckwalter, and Gongming Yan—was in preparation for a research visit to Shanghai in March by Andover administrators and faculty. (A similar research visit is planned for Beijing in March 2008.)

The goal of the December trip was to learn how the partner schools operate, how Chinese students are educated, and how policies play out for those affected by them—the teachers and students. “The partner schools are the lens through which faculty will begin to look at China,” says Merrill, noting the importance of knowing about and learning from that culture.

Adds Chase: “China is one of the nations that is going to be extremely important in the 21st century. We owe it to our students to have them learn much more about China than we’ve been able to include in our program in the past.”

Not that Chinese education is suffering at Andover. Chase has seen the number of enrollments in Chinese language courses grow sharply during her time as head of school. Andover has one of the largest Chinese programs of any U.S. secondary school—more than 200 PA students study the language, under the tutelage of four faculty members. Among those modern languages offered at Andover, Chinese is second in popularity only to Spanish.

Some of that student learning was put to apt use last summer: more than 20 Andover students traveled to China for an intensive five-week language and culture program initiated by Andover and developed as a pilot by School Year Abroad. Additionally, Board of Trustees President Oscar Tang ’56 has funded a series of Andover Faculty China Trips, unique opportunities for educators in many disciplines to become acquainted with Chinese history, society, and culture.

“Obviously some of that exposure and learning is going to be reflected in the curriculum as faculty come back and their experiences get woven into their courses,” says Chase.

One effort in the works would cut across learning in environmental science, global economics, and Chinese language. “One can imagine a theme whereby students or faculty could question the link between technology and progress, or the impact of development on culture,” says Maqubela. “We tried this successfully with an IAP project that involved students from Andover, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa, and we found that the topic of sustainability and the environment was very important to the youth of all these countries. We detected a similar interest in China.”

Sure enough, a group of Shanghai educators who visited Andover in February came to learn more of how PA approaches community service, student activities, and interdisciplinary education.

“Those are the kinds of ideas we’re trying to explore,” says Chase of the proposed interdisciplinary program. “Whether our students would study that here and then have an experience in China during the summer or whether there would be a term in China—that’s still to be determined.”

She adds: “Those kinds of issues provide great interdisciplinary opportunities and really combine globalism with interdisciplinary learning, which is obviously a very exciting, very promising development.”

Global thinking and interdisciplinary learning are, of course, two of the hallmarks of the school’s most recent Strategic Plan, adopted in 2004. Chase says Andover will continue to develop projects and spotlight pre-existing learning opportunities that address such initiatives.

“We’re actually working inductively and deductively,” Chase says.

Traveling through Asia with the Head of School

To keep members of the Andover community abreast of their activities during their trip to Asia, Head of School Barbara Landis Chase, Director of Alumni Affairs Michael Ebner, and Director of Stewardship David Chase kept an online travel journal posted on the Andover Web site. Here are excerpts from the journal:

Rev. Michael Ebner
November 7, 2006
Beijing

“What is most evident in Beijing is the contrast of an ancient city being honored by a new tradition of prosperity and national pride. Everywhere there is the traditional one-story building with red tile roofs surrounded by thick vegetation; but interspersed is the new Beijing—an amalgam of glass skyscrapers and contemporary shopping centers with video advertising and high-fashion names.”

David Chase
November 7, 2006
Beijing

“We are a short hop from the Forbidden City and vast Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City is one of the world’s most extraordinary palace complexes—mighty and walled and seemingly impenetrable from without. Inside, a grand procession of courtyards and pavilions, all strictly symmetrical and hieratic, surrounded by a warren of intimate lesser courts and private quarters. The architecture is all of a piece, massive yet endlessly rich in detail, and lovingly cared for as a symbol of China’s cultural and political history.”

Rev. Michael Ebner
November 10, 2006
Beijing

“All the schools we visited seemed to value the need for facilities that would enhance their academic programs, and we even heard mention of the ‘facilities escalation’ problems with which U.S. schools and universities also are struggling. What is obvious, however, is that the real interest in Andover for these schools is to explore how best to teach. What are the opportunities presented and the challenges put before young people that will promote and sustain their educational growth? What kind of collaborative efforts can help each to learn from the other?”

Barbara Landis Chase
November 12, 2006
Shanghai

“The blessings and challenges of industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth are etched on the landscape of each city we visit. The changes in Beijing just since we visited in 1998 are profound. Many more buildings, many more cars, internationally known luxury brand stores everywhere!”

David Chase
November 16, 2006
Hong Kong

“Hong Kong has a beautiful harbor. Or it did. It is now shrouded in smog. So, too, is Shanghai’s dramatic skyline. China will soon surpass the United States as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases. The impact of fossil fuel use is all too apparent as one visits Asia’s most dynamic cities…. If one wonders about the need to think and plan globally, one has but to witness what has happened in Asia in a generation.”

Barbara Landis Chase
November 18, 2006
Hong Kong

“For us Andover visitors, seeing the enthusiasm of the alumni, parents, and prospective students who greeted us at various gatherings made the visit especially rewarding…. As always, for me, it was great to see and talk with alumni I knew as students. From my 12 years, I loved catching up with Zach McAffee ’97, the Ng sisters (Nikki ’98, Jeanne ’99, and Christine ’01), and Andrew Sullivan ’96—all involved in various endeavors, study, and work in Hong Kong, and all of whom remember their Andover experiences and friends with pleasure.”

Barbara Landis Chase
November 24, 2006
Bangkok

“Thailand presents a riveting case study of the challenges of economic and political development in the developing world. A coup had taken place in late September, and hearing the various opinions expressed by the people with whom we talked gave a real sense of how complicated and risky the situation is. Here, one could appreciate firsthand the question of what democracy means for various countries and how delicate it truly is.”

To the read complete blog posted by the Andover entourage simply go to www.andover.edu/multimediagallery.