Tufts students have joined with Chinese students in the Tufts Institute for Leadership and International Perspective (TILIP) program, which was created in cooperation with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University, and Peking University as an intensive bicultural program for undergraduate and graduate students. To date, the group has traveled from Hong Kong to Xi'an to Beijing to the Medford campus.
This year, 13 students were chosen to participate on the basis of demonstrated leadership skills, excellent academic and practice-based learning, outstanding communication skills, and an interest in the relationship between the Pacific Rim and the United States. The best applicants were offered full scholarships to the program.
"There is usually a mix between veteran international research students and students who have never left Medford," founding director Sherman Teichman said. "We find students who we think will thrive in this environment."
Each of the Tufts students is partnered with one of the Chinese students, who are all among the top ten percent of the 300,000 students in their senior class. The teams then participate in a six-week mentored internship in Hong Kong and prepare business-based projects.
This year's host organizations include the e-commerce companies Tradelink Economic Progress Limited, OOCL, Russell Reynolds Associates, China's Education and Manpower Bureau, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Ltd., and Crown Worldwide Organization, among others.
Tufts students on the program were among the first Westerners to visit a rural school at the Sijiqing village. They also visited the People's Great Hall and the People's Supreme Court and had the opportunity to speak with local elective officials.
Senior Tufts participant Ehren Brav said that one of the most interesting aspects of the trip was a lecture that students attended with a professor Pan Wei at Peking University.
"He presented to the Americans a Chinese viewpoint on democracy and globalization that most of us were unaware of," Brav said. "It gave us a new perspective."
Among the biggest challenges to the students was to prepare to meet with the high-ranking officials and scholars who were involved in the program.
"Students are meeting with leading government figures, analysts and directors," Teichman said. "Authors of cutting-edge texts that the students have read will be coming to speak with them."
Yesterday participating students met with Ravi Kanbur who was on the staff of the World Bank from 1989 to 1997, serving successively as Economic Adviser, Senior Economic Adviser, Resident Representative in Ghana, Chief Economist of the African Region of the World Bank, and Principle Adviser to the Chief Economist of the World Bank. Last week, the students went to the United Nations and met with Kofi Annan.
"Participating in this program convinced me that I want to go to graduate school and get involved in international law and government," Brav said. "It also intensified my interest in China. The program showed me that people aren't aware of this, but US-China relations are going to be one of the most important in the coming years."
For Brav, the biggest challenge of the program was dealing with differing conceptions between American and Chinese students over the importance of various issues facing the program. But according to Brav, the students learned to compromise.
"The Chinese and American students had a different way of communicating," Brav said. "The Chinese were subtle and the Americans were loud, they had to learn to adapt."
"It was a remarkable opportunity for students to collaborate with students from other backgrounds and be open-minded," Peking-native Shuping Wang said. "This is my first time in the US. I like this part of the program the most, feeling the atmosphere of the US."
Many of the Chinese students currently participating in TILIP plan to attend graduate school in the United States, and both the Chinese and the American students agree to remain in touch once the program is over.
