The planes may have all touched down back home, but the work is just getting started for Western.
To date, the 11-day trip to China in late April is the university’s most ambitious effort in internationalization. And while there were some concrete announcements made in conjunction with the visit, in many ways, the trip served to inform Western’s leadership on what it would take to play on an international stage.
“We have some clarity around our next steps,” said Janice Deakin, provost and vice-president (academic), who led the delegation. “Now, we are looking at how do you execute and who do you execute it with. But these partnerships are two-way streets. These are the very best universities in China. They have their choice to be partners with the best schools around the world. We also need to provide for them evidence of the added value of partnering with us.
“No relationship works in life unless there is communication and contact. This isn’t something you can do once a year and hope to be successful.”
Deakin expects the next few months to be filled with crafting an execution strategy, one that involves lots of contact between Western and its potential Chinese partners.
Julie McMullin, special advisor to the president (international), said the university can look for quick-win programs to be implemented in the short run, but larger, fully developed partnerships will require more face time. Western plans to invite Chinese colleagues and counterparts to Canada soon. Then in the fall, Western looks to return a smaller delegation.
“We’ve now done some testing; we have some facts. The first objective will be to develop the strategy for China. You cannot develop a strategy until you have the information in hand,” Deakin stressed. “Some you can gather through research, part of it you have got to go and do some of these introductory calls. That’s been done; we’ve tested some of our hypotheses, if you will, and now it’s time to develop the China strategy for Western.
“And we don’t need to go back until we have developed it.”
In part, the university plans to use existing relationships to build broader partnerships. Some of those relationships led to announcements on this trip including:
- Western and Sichuan University signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) building upon one signed in 2009 that made possible collaboration between the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and West China Medical School. The renewed MOU provides a framework for the universities to explore relationships across additional academic disciplines including Engineering, Law, Science, Social Sciences and Health Sciences;
- Western Law renewed its exchange agreement with Hong Kong University;
- CSTAR (Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics) delivered the West China Hospital Primary Care Workshop to 100 participants at the hospital, as well as 30 participants at Jintang County People’s Hospital No. 2 and 50 at the Mental Health Center of Guangyuan City, who took part in a live, interactive broadcast of a surgical procedure;
- WORLDiscoveries officially opened its Asia-Nanjing Centre at an event organized by Western’s WORLDiscoveries, Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology and Xin-Cheng Science and Technology Park by signing three agreements to commercialize research and innovation originating from Western.
These are all just early steps in a larger journey for Western, Deakin said.
“There are a lot of people in China trying to mobilize with the same top universities. They have a handful of top universities and everyone wants to be associated with them in a meaningful way,” Deakin said. “So if it’s a dance, we’re early in the evening.”
From a development standpoint, one major event dominated the trip – a reception for volunteers and top donors hosted by alumnus Henry Cheng in the Cheng Yu Tung Management Institute, Ivey’s Hong Kong campus named in honour of Cheng’s father.
Cheng, BA’71, MBA’72, LLD’97, is the managing director of New World Development, a company with interests in property, infrastructure, services and department stores in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Macau. On this recent trip, Cheng brought Western’s delegation together with Hong Kong Alumni Advisory Board members, Executive Committee members as well as volunteers and alumni in Asia-Pacific region.
The event, said Kevin Goldthorp, vice-president (external), was a cornerstone for Western’s next steps onto the international stage.
“For some, it has been a decade of establishing relationships,” he said. “Now, we’re at the point of taking it to a much higher level of activity and engagement. Before, it was about establishing trust; now, it is rapidly building beyond that to have these people help us. It’s gone beyond the social to a comprehensive relationship.”
While he stands as the third-largest private donor to Western, Cheng has come to symbolize the serendipitous timing of Western’s internationalization ambitions.
Cheng came to Western in the early 1970s, as part of an early wave of Asian international students. That group has now ascended into senior leadership positions in the region. So today, Western boasts tremendously influential people in key positions including the deputy CEO of Bank of China-Hong Kong, a Western Law alumnus, and Microsoft China’s CEO. And many of them are looking for ways to help their alma mater.
Out of this trip, Goldthorp has identified 15 new individuals to visit on his next trip as well as a handful of partnerships to explore and volunteers to enlist. There are several donations on the table, many focused on new scholarships as well as international internship opportunities.
Goldthorp also cited a potential partnership developing between Canadian businesses operating in Hong Kong aligning with Western research and Hong Kong alumni.
“They are proud of Western, and want to see Western succeed. They want Western to be better known,” Goldthorp said. “And they are pushing us to make Western better known, and tell our story better. They want that pride in their degree to show and attract new generations to Western from Asia.”