I agree with Ginger.
I took a group of executive MBA students to Hong and Beijing in 2002. I
recall that an officer from the US Consulate that spoke to our group
told us that Hong Kong is like "one country with 2 systems" since it has
been under the PRC since 1997. He said human rights still exist in Hong
Kong, and he did not see any deterioration of the rule of law and the
court system in Hong Kong that had been established by the British. He
also thought that the press was still vibrant. He saw Hong Kong as a
picture of what China could be 20-30 years from now. I'm sure Michael
has the exact stats on this, but my understanding is that about half of
China's foreign investment comes from Hong Kong, and half of it's trade
goes through Hong Kong. So it is in China's best interest not to mess
too much with Hong Kong. Of course, one view could be that this US
Consulate was being diplomatic.
That said, I did notice some "watchers" in Hong Kong, but there was much
openness in the discussions. The watching in Hong Kong was more along
the line of nervousness and embarrassment, while in Beijiing PRC
presence had a more coercive feel. Our students were extremely
outspoken. It is hard to curb executives when they want to talk, but I
didn't see any big problems (except for a few very embarrassing moments
in Beijing). Of course, we were not teaching Chinese students, although
some were in on the discussions. It is true that the Chinese students
did not speak in the open classroom, but I just chalked that up to our
folks dominating the discussion, which they would do in a class in the
US as well. This was a pretty aggressive group of east coast upper
level managers.
Rosemary Hartigan
Director, Business and Executive Programs and Collegiate Professor
Graduate School of Management & Technology
University of Maryland University College
Ginger, Laura wrote:
>I believe that Nancy will find things to be much better on the dimensions discussed below in Hong Kong than on the mainland. In fact, even in Shanghai at an institution like CEIBS, I think things would be much different in a positive way.
>Laura
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Michael O'Hara
>Sent: Thu 8/18/2005 5:40 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Cc:
>Subject: Re: Teaching in Hong Kong
>
>
>
> I can offer good news and bad news.
>
> Several years ago UNO offered its MBA on site at a university in
> Beijing. This was the UNO MBA delivered by UNO professors on site in
> intensive courses. Each class started on Monday at 8AM and ended on Friday
> by 5PM. Our Dean at the time had played host to a Fulbright Scholar a
> couple of decades earlier who then became Dean at Beijing. They maintained
> a warm and friendly relationship over a couple of decades and it matured
> into this program. Both sides welcomed the opportunity and worked to
> assure its success.
>
> First the bad news. Relative to our original expectations it had a
> multitude of failures, mostly far from small from our perspective but
> ranging from just what they wanted to unquestionably acceptable from their
> perspective. The primary source of the failures was an inability to align
> expectations. Regardless of how vigorously and relentlessly UNO expressed
> UNO's expectations, either the Chinese did not or would not understand our
> commitments to some criteria of success. After completing one cohort of
> degree recipients out of an originally anticipated three cohorts, the UNO
> faculty and the UNO administration refused to continue. Trust, but verify
> is not sufficient. Get a performance bond issued by a firm in the USA that
> views contracts the same way you do.
>
> What were the flaws?
>
> [A] TOEFL scores were fraudulent. Persons other than the students
> took the exams. UNO insisted on the students taking an earning the
> astronomical (yeah, right) TOEFL score of 450 prior to being handed a UNO
> diploma. That caused all sorts of consternation, especially when UNO made
> clear that UNO was going to control the chain of custody of all documents.
> Rather than a mean of 570 --before-- classes were delivered in English,
> --after-- all classes the mean TOEFL was 470.
>
> [B] Since it was to be a rapid fire delivery (i.e., 40 classroom
> hours within one work week), all of the textbooks were to be delivered to
> the students at least three weeks prior to the start of class so that all
> students would have had the opportunity to read the entire textbook prior
> to the start of class. Of twelve classes, 1 class had the textbooks
> delivered more than 1 day before the first day of classes; 1 class had
> textbooks delivered on the -last- day of classes; and the other 10 had the
> books delivered during the first class meeting.
>
> [C] Contrary to express commitments, communist watchers attended
> every class. The watchers glared at students when -any- discussion broke
> out, thus creating a stifling classroom setting. One watcher became so
> distressed by the instructor's refusal to take a hint and the students
> following the instructor's lead (recall a teacher's position in the
> pecking order in Asia), that the watcher stopped the class meeting and
> berated the students then and following the class. There was zero
> discussion in that class after that incident.
>
> [D] Both for education and for AACSB accreditation requirements,
> library resource commitments were sought and obtained. No real library was
> available in Beijing for doing USA MBA research. That UNO anticipated.
> UNO fenagled "on site" status for the Beijing students logging on through
> the UNO Library server to all of UNO's electronic library resources.
> However, only one internet line per --class-- was provided, rather than the
> promised one line per student: and, the communist watcher had to be
> present during use the line. Watchers saw no need for working overtime.
>
> [E] I got conflicting reports on this next item. UNO has a series
> of prerequisites for the MBA. Some were (e.g., statistics) and some were
> not (e.g., accounting, economics) part of the engineering school's ordinary
> curriculum. The additional prerequisites were to be delivered by the
> Beijing faculty --prior-- to the first class delivered by UNO faculty. The
> conflicting reports were the additional prerequisites never were delivered
> or were delivered after the middle of the UNO program. I suspect the
> latter is more true. When it became clear that the capstone course
> required mastery of accounting and economics, and that UNO would not
> graduate a student who did not earn a "B" in the capstone course, I suspect
> Beijing dedicated the time and money of the Beijing faculty finally
> delivering those prerequisites.
>
> Now for the good news.
>
> [1] The students were eager and willing to work. In every class
> meeting after the books did arrive, at least one student had read the
> chapter and had written up study notes that were distributed to the other
> students. All students clearly read most of the text prior to the end of
> the class.
>
> [2] The students are well prepared in anything that the student
> actually had in a class. The prerequisites (not promised to be completed,
> but actually completed) are learned at a level of long term retention
> rather than forget it right after the exam.
>
> [3] The students are mentally agile and mature (avoiding repression
> does that).
>
> [4] All of our faculty were glad they went, even if none were
> willing to return.
>
> [5] The Beijing physical accommodations were as bad as we
> anticipated (e.g., run down Motel 6 from circa 1960), thus that was neither
> a plus nor a minus. The welcoming attitude of everyone other than the
> communist watchers created a delightful social environment.
>
> Since political cover is needed, you would be wise to craft written
> materials that explicitly bring out all issues. Not because the students
> won't "get it" otherwise, but because it is far more socially acceptable to
> say "The textbook says xxxxx is an issue we must consider.". Similarly, in
> the written materials be more blunt in -requiring- all of the points of
> view, otherwise you will get feedback limited to the (then and there)
> politically correct --point-- of view.
>
> Good luck, and have fun!
>
> Michael
>
> Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
> Finance, Banking, & Law Department Editor, Journal of Legal
> Economics
> College of Business Administration (402) 554 - 2014 voice fax (402)
> 554 - 3825
> Roskens Hall 502 www.AAEFE.org
> University of Nebraska at Omaha www.JournalOfLegalEconomics.com
> Omaha NE 68182
> [log in to unmask]
> (402) 554 - 2823 voice fax (402) 554 - 2680
> http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm
>
>
>
>
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