Rice University president part of U.S. delegation to Asia

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Rice University president part of U.S. delegation to Asia
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings invites 12 university leaders to help promote U.S. higher education in Asian nations

Rice University President David W. Leebron is one of 12 leaders of American universities and colleges invited by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to accompany her on a trip to Asia Nov. 10-18 to promote the value of U.S. higher education.

This first official delegation of U.S. college and university presidents and senior government officials will meet with university students and leaders, the business community, government officials, and alumni of U.S. study programs in Japan, Korea and China during International Education Week. These three Asian nations are among the top countries worldwide that send the most students to study in the U.S.

Rice President David W. Leebron (standing, fourth from right) and other presidents of U.S. universities who are accompanying Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings on a trip to Asia meet with the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Tokyo.

”Our relations with these nations are vitally important to the United States,” Secretary Spellings said. ”Enhancing the flow of students and scholars to the U.S. from Northeast Asia will strengthen our ties with these nations and benefit higher education in our country. Our delegation will carry the messages that the United States welcomes foreign students, our country is a premier destination for educational opportunities, we welcome partnerships with foreign universities, and education plays an important role in our bilateral relationships.”

Assistant Secretary of State Dina Habib Powell will accompany the delegation, whose members were selected to represent the rich diversity of the more than 4,200 accredited U.S. higher-education institutions, from community colleges to advanced research institutions.

”Rice University is honored to be among the dozen institutions chosen to participate in this first mission by the Secretary of Education to help encourage more foreign students to study in the United States,” President Leebron said. ”We at Rice have already extended such a message of welcome to international students as one of the key points of Rice’s Vision for the Second Century: becoming a more international university, with a more significant investment in our relations with Asia. We fully realize that the great universities of the 21st century will of necessity be global institutions, and we value the unique social, cultural and academic perspectives and talent that international students bring to our campus.”

President Leebron noted that adequate preparation of students requires that they be able to learn from and work in more than one culture.   Increasing the international diversity at Rice can give students a competitive advantage in the global economy.

In addition to the president of Rice, the delegation includes the chancellor of University of California, Santa Barbara, and the presidents of Indiana University; Johns Hopkins University; Piedmont Community College; University at Buffalo, SUNY; Ohio State University; University of Tulsa; Community College of Philadelphia; Seattle Pacific University; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and University of Florida. Assistant Secretary of Education Lauren Maddox, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Farrell, and Senior Adviser to Secretary of Education Robin Gilchrist are members as well, along with Secretary Spellings and Assistant Secretary Powell.

While sending a message of welcome to foreign students who want to study in the U.S., the delegation will also promote increased collaboration, partnerships and exchanges with foreign universities. In addition, they will leverage the partnership between U.S. higher-education leaders and U.S. government leaders to promote international education in the national interest.

Among the academic institutions they will visit are Waseda University in Tokyo and Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.  Plans to visit a university in Beijing are in progress. Also on the agenda are a digital video conference with Shanghai University leaders and meetings with the Osaka/Kyoto academic community, the ministers of education and American chambers of commerce in various countries, alumni of U.S. study programs and news media.

These educational outreach efforts are likely to benefit from the experience of the delegation members who have already demonstrated leadership in international education. President Leebron, for example, has traveled previously to Asia to strengthen Rice’s international relationships both for faculty and students. In Korea he has visited Seoul National University and met with the ministry of foreign affairs and trade, the deputy prime minister for education, and the deputy prime minister for science and technology; in China he has visited Peking, Tsinghua, Tianjin, Nankai, Fudan, Jiaotong, Tongji, and Zhejiang universities, Hong Kong University for Science and Technology, and with the Shanghai Municipal Education commission, and he has met with the vice minister of education and the U.S. ambassador to China; in Japan he has visited Tokyo Institute for Technology, University of Tokyo, Keio University, and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and he has met with the senior vice ministers of education and science. He also visited Taiwan this past January. China’s vice minister of education, as well as some of the university presidents, have reciprocated by visiting Rice University. Next month, the president of Tianjin University will visit the campus.

The Office of the Secretary of Education will share information gathered during the trip with educational exchange administrators on campuses to promote increased student flows to and from the United States and Asia. During 2004-05, more than 325,000 Asian students – 58 percent of all international students — studied in the U.S.; more than 62,500 were from China, more than 53,300 were from South Korea, and more than 42,000 were from Japan. During 2003-04, the most recent year for which data are available, slightly more than 13,000 American students studied in Asia. This past year, Rice’s international undergraduate population doubled from three to seven percent.

International students and their dependents contribute nearly $14 billion to the U.S. economy each academic year. They also share their experiences about the institution they attend with colleagues back home and can serve as valuable friends and allies in the future, Secretary Spellings noted.