Education with a Global Focus: Ed.D. Students Study in China and Australia

Elisabeth Hughes

“I learned …a new appreciation for and understanding of global education.” Lisa Fowler

The Executive Ed.D. program continued its focus on global higher education this summer with study abroad at leading universities in China and Australia. These experiences offered the Ed.D. students exposure to new systems of education to build on last year’s European seminars in the Netherlands, on the Bologna Process and the reform of European higher education. Wendy Hoffman, athletic director and assistant business professor at Midway College, Kentucky, summed up what the trip meant to her, “To gain even a sliver of true understanding of China’s culture, a trip such as ours with the opportunity to engage students and professors provided a genuine experience with lasting insights.” Chris LaCola, assistant dean of the Moore’s School of Business at the University of South Carolina agreed, “I realized just how little I knew about China, its people and its culture. It was an amazing and eye-opening experience.”

Students who chose to go to China were hosted by Professors Baocun Liu and Xiao Guang Shi and their graduate students from Beijing Normal University and Peking University. They learned that 400 million Chinese students are currently studying English. The Ed.D. students were taught by the most eminent faculty members in Chinese higher education, including Professor Yingjie Wang, a former president of BNU and visiting professor at Harvard. Side trips included climbing the Great Wall, exploring Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Lama Temple, and the Summer Palace, and by a fortuitous coincidence touring the beautiful campus of Tsinghua University on graduation day. The students also had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Haixia Xu, a graduate of the IHE’s Ph.D. program and now a researcher at the Chinese Ministry of Education, and question her in-depth about the Chinese education system.

The group then traveled to Shanghai, where they had a seminar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University with Professor Nian Cai Liu, one of the originators of the Shanghai ranking system of world universities, who discussed how he and his colleagues compiled and interpreted the data for the rankings.

In Australia, Drs. Lynn Meek and Leo Goedegebuure, who direct the LH Martin Institute for Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, hosted the students. The group attended classes at the University of Melbourne, where they learned about the “Melbourne Model,” the university’s total restructuring of its curriculum for degree and professional programs, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. There were side trips to the vineyards of the Yarra Valley and the Healesville Sanctuary and Wildlife Hospital, an important training center for wildlife veterinarians, where unique species of Australian wildlife are protected.

The students then moved to Sydney and lectures at Australian Catholic University’s Sydney branch and the University of Sydney, with a ferry ride to Manly Beach and a tour of Sydney’s famous harbor, bridge, and opera house environs.

One theme that became obvious to everyone was the importance of international students to higher education systems in so many countries and the truly global context of higher education. For Lisa Fowler, assistant V-P for enrollment management at Georgia Perimeter College, “Having the opportunity to study in Australia was a dream come true. I learned so much and have returned with a new appreciation for and understanding of global education. I have already begun work on study abroad programs that we can implement here at my institution so our students can study in Australia.” Tim Doyle, director of enrollment management at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, echoed her sentiments, “I learned how truly interconnected higher education is at the international level. Observing American influences on Australian education encouraged me to consider bringing Australian ideas to my home campus in Iraq, and made the trip a very valuable educational experience.”