Global Strategies

Honda: The Power of Dreams, The Power of Failure

I like the spirit of this 8 minute youtube video from Honda Racing. I’ve had little success in convincing legislators or school superintendents of the long term strategic importance of having more Mandarin in the public schools or of having more high school students study abroad. The video gives me a bit of a lift.

As Rob Jacobs wrote on his blog “Education Innovation” where I first saw this video (here):

It reminds us that to learn and improve we need to:

• Take risks
• See failure as means to move forward and succeed.
• You can fail many times, but you only have to succeed once.

 

Economist: "Higher Education: The future is in another country"

The Economist has an article “Higher Education: The future is another country” which is subtitled “A world of colleges without borders should benefit everyone, including students who stay at home.” Oregon's public universities have focused more on bringing foreign students on campus than on sending Oregon students abroad. They bring money and diversity.  PSU President Wim Wiewel recently told a Oregon legislative committee that he would like to get PSU’s foreign students up to 10% of PSU's enrollment.  But the Oregon University System only had 28 students in 2005-06 studying abroad in China (27) or Taiwan (1) (here). I blogged last sumer that “OUS Students Not Studying Abroad Where the Problems Will Be” (here).

The Economist article begins (here):

Just a few decades ago, students at universities outside their home countries formed a tiny elite. Some gained scholarships with famous names like Rhodes or Fulbright; others were sent by governments, grooming them for top jobs in academia or public service. A few were born to cosmopolitan parents who searched for the best schooling money could buy.

That picture has changed. The 20th century saw a surge in higher education; in the early 21st century, the idea of going abroad to study has become thinkable for ordinary students. In 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available, nearly 3m were enrolled in higher education institutions outside their own countries, a rise of more than 50% since 2000.

One reason is the growth of the global corporation; ambitious youngsters sense that a spell studying abroad will impress multinational employers. But for school-leavers in the developing world, the poor teaching and lack of places at home are stronger factors. China, the biggest “sending” country, with around 200,000 students currently in higher education abroad, has university places for less than a fifth of its 100m college-age youngsters. In June 2008 around 10m sat the gao kao, the state university entrance exam. There were places for two-thirds of them. That is despite huge growth; the number of places has risen almost fivefold in as many years.

The general level of China’s higher education remains low. In 1966 Mao Zedong closed the universities and scattered their teachers; when they re-opened they were short of cash, and a preference for rote learning still leaves many graduates ill-prepared. A 2006 study by McKinsey, a consultancy, found that of the country’s 1.6m young engineers only 10% were capable of working for multinational firms.

In the 1990s, China began pouring money into research at around 100 of its 1,800-odd higher-education institutions, hoping to create an elite tier of universities. But the country has yet to register on the global education scale: a ranking by Shanghai Jiao Tong University puts no Chinese institution in the world’s top 200 universities; Britain’s Times Higher Education magazine puts Peking University 50th and only six Chinese institutions in the top 200. For Chinese youngsters who can raise the cash, study abroad looks attractive.

Students travel to help themselves, but universities and host countries gain too. Around a fifth of university students in Australia were born abroad, and international education is the country’s third-biggest export after coal and iron ore. Foreign students who work in their spare time plug gaps in Australia’s labour markets.

And there is more on China, Australia, Taiwan, Spain and Japan (here).

 

 

Musings on Higher Ed

Since the summer of 2006 I’ve been writing the members of Oregon’s Board of Higher Education and the presidents of the three major public universities to increase the number of students studying Mandarin at their institutions and to send more to study abroad in China. I’ve spoken to most of them individually, usually briefly and at Board meetings. In 2007, the Oregon House Education Committee held a hearing on Higher Ed’s involvement in China. Each of Oregon’s three major public universities submitted data on the number of students studying Mandarin at their institution. Each had about 1.5% of their undergraduates doing so. In my opinion, 10% would be a more adequate figure for a generation that will probably sees China’s economy grow to be more than twice the size of the US economy. The Board and the Presidents have done nothing to increase the number of students studying Mandarin. Absolutely nothing. I know how resistant to change Higher Ed in Oregon is.

Patrick Emerson on his blog “The Oregon Economics Blog” argued that investments in education contribute to economic growth, and that “a state like Oregon should view education as a part of its economic (as opposed to social) strategy.” (here). In a comment there, I agreed generally, but cautioned not to think that the current model and organization of education was the most efficient. Then I quoted John Robb.

John Robb (wiki here) is blogger, writer and theorist of modern warfare and conflict. He is author of the influential book “Brave New War” (here). He has a dark view of mankind’s future:

Because we are unable to decapitate, outsmart, or defend ourselves against global guerrillas, naturally occurring events, and residual nationalism from causing cascades of failure throughout the global system, we need to learn to live with the threat they present. As we have already seen, this doesn’t mean an activist foreign policy that seeks to rework the world in our image, police state measures to ensure state security or spending all of our resources on protecting everything. It does mean the adoption of a philosophy of resilience that ensures that when these events to occur (and they will), we can more easily survive their impact.

 

Resilience means building local self-sufficiency. But it is not his views on the future of warfare that make him relevant here. It is his post on “Industrial Education?” (here) in which he writes:

Education, in its current form is an admixture of industrial and artisan processes.  While the quantities of product (graduates) produced and the facilities resemble industrial processes, the actual production is most closely akin to artisanship (with guilds, no less!).   Regardless, this process has become an albatross of cost and stagnating quality.  For example, costs for collegiate education have increased 4.39 times faster than inflation over the past three decades and has now eclipsed affordability for most households (median incomes have stagnated during this same period) with no appreciable improvement in the quality of graduates.  Worse, there is reason to believe that costs of higher education (direct costs and lost income) are now nearly equal (in net present value) to the additional lifetime income derived from having a degree.  Since nearly all of the value of an education has been extracted by the producer, to the detriment of the customer, this situation has all the earmarks of a bubble.  A bubble that will soon burst as median incomes are adjusted downwards to global norms over the next decade.*

Fortunately, with the implosion of this bubble, the opportunity to introduce improvements will emerge.  The most interesting of these improvements is the ability of collaborative online education to replace much, if not most of in person teaching.

Which lead to the NY Times article “Israeli Entrepreneur Plans a Free Global University” by Tamar Lewin (1/25/09, here):

An Israeli entrepreneur with decades of experience in international education plans to start the first global, tuition-free Internet university, a nonprofit venture he has named the University of the People.

“The idea is to take social networking and apply it to academia,” said the entrepreneur, Shai Reshef, founder of several Internet-based educational businesses.

“The open-source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free,” Mr. Reshef said. “We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.” …

… For-profit universities like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University have extensive online offerings. And increasingly, both public and private universities offer at least some classes online.

Outside the United States, too, online learning is booming. Open University in Britain, for example, enrolls about 160,000 undergraduates in distance-learning courses.

The University of the People, like other Internet-based universities, would have online study communities, weekly discussion topics, homework assignments and exams. But in lieu of tuition, students would pay only nominal fees for enrollment ($15 to $50) and exams ($10 to $100), with students from poorer countries paying the lower fees and those from richer countries paying the higher ones.

To get a further flavor of this trends watch this ad for Kaplan:

 

Why should Oregonian invest in the Oregon University System when we could have many of our students studying for less?

 

 

 

Maya Frost: "The New Global Student"

Former Oregonian Maya Frost has a book coming out May 19^th titled “The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a truly Global Education.” It looks great! (Her website is here).

As for her Oregon roots:

She grew up in the tiny farming town (population: 320) of Gaston, Oregon. (Meanwhile, Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist, was growing up just down the road in the equally small town of Yamhill, so don't think small-town beginnings can't spawn big-world adventures!) She was valedictorian, student body vice-president, pep club president, co-editor of the school newspaper, prom princess and homecoming queen--and was suspended (and kicked out of the National Honor Society) when she showed up at the homecoming dance intoxicated. Despite her full schedule, she was bored silly and longed to dive into higher education early. If only she had been able to read The New Global Student !

She now lives in Buenos Aires. Here are some of her views:

One of the most important skills for students in the 21st century global economy is the ability to communicate clearly in a foreign language and work well with others from different backgrounds.
In a blended, borderless world in which people flow freely and job options are not restricted to any particular continent, 21st century workers will rely increasingly on their ability to be adaptable in new settings and competent when it comes to completing projects that require collaboration with others from around the world.

How do students who spend 16 years going to school in a familiar setting learn the skills they need to go global (no matter where they live)? Simple: they have to get out of their familiar setting. Period.

There’s no way to fake this–going to an international high school or majoring in global studies in college are poor substitutes for the brain-expanding experience of spending time abroad at a young age. Spending a semester abroad in college along with a bunch of other Americans isn’t likely to result in language fluency or greater cultural understanding. Our future leaders will be those who have actually lived in other cultures, learned at least one foreign language, and are completely comfortable working with a very diverse and international crowd. (President-elect Obama is a great example.) They have the ability to recognize differences in the way others see a problem and have gained the skills and confidence required to bring people together to create a workable solution to any given challenge.

Exactly right! Only we need to make international education part of our public educational system.

You can order her book at Amazon (here) or Powell’s (here).

NY Senator Gillibrand speaks Chinese

New York’s new US Senator speaks and writes Mandarin and spent a semester in China during college. NY Governor Paterson appointed Kirsten Gillibrand as NY’s US Senator replacing Hillary Clinton. As the NY Times reports (here):

At Dartmouth, she was known as Tina Rutnik and was a boisterous presence who majored in Asian studies…..

…. She learned to speak and write Chinese before spending a semester in China, and wrote a senior project titled “The History of Tibetan Resistance to the Chinese Occupation of Tibet 1950-1988.”

As part of her studies, she and her mother visited the Dalai Lama’s house while traveling in India. The Albany Times Union reported in 2006 that mother and daughter paid to support the education of a Tibetan boy.

Ms. Gillibrand later interned at the United Nations Crime Prevention branch in Vienna.

 

Get Barnett’s “Great Powers: America and the World After Bush”

Tom Barnett has a new book coming out in early February. It’s titled “Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.” It will be entertaining and provocative. Challenge yourself. Get a copy.

I first read Barnett in 2006. His 2005 Esquire article “The Chinese are our friends” (here) gave me my first post-cold war glimpse of the strategic importance of China to our future, and lead to my continuing focus on preparing our next generations for this future by expanding Mandarin and study abroad in China programs. Here’s a bit from that essay:

It is no secret that in a generation's time China's influence over the global economy will rival America's, so it requires no great leap of logic for any strategist shy of fifty to realize that China and America are destined to enjoy a deep strategic partnership if globalization is to continue its historic expansion across the twenty-first century. This is probably the biggest strategic choice we've ever faced as a nation, because if we avoid this path, we'll most certainly prevent a future in which all of humanity can benefit from globalization's promise.

Few historic ends will ever come close to justifying such a wide array of means as the strategic alliance of the United States and China in coming decades. In this century, this partnership will define global stability just as much as the U. S.-British "special relationship" of the twentieth century did. It will be that important in its execution, that precious in its bond, that profound in its reach. The blueprint for global peace will be a joint Sino-American document. There is no alternative.

Too big of a paradigm shift for you? Check that birth certificate. If it's dated earlier than 1955, you're excused for the century, and here's why: Cold-war babies can't escape the logic that says, "If you resemble America politically, then you must be our friend." That was fine and dandy for the late-twentieth-century version of globalization, limited as it was to the narrowly defined West. But that's not the globalization we face today--much less tomorrow. No, that process is far more defined by the emergence of such new pillars as China, India, Brazil, and Russia than it is by that old-boys' club of North America, Western Europe, and industrialized Asia.

In the future, America will have more in common with China than with Japan, with India than with the UK, with Brazil than with Canada, and with Russia than either France or Germany. In general, if you're more like us economically, then you're logically America's strongest allies--despite whatever political differences appear to divide us. That's realism in the age of globalization--love it or leave it.

I’m sure his new book will continue to stress the strategic importance of China. I am also sure it will be full of many more provocative insights.

Barnett’s blog is here.

“Great Powers” at Amazon is here

Youtubes of his 2006 brief are on my blog here.

Oregon Petroleum Association fights gas taxes

The United States needs a substantial gas tax to stop funding hostile petrostates, to curb greenhouse gas emissions, to bring dollars going overseas home, and to provide the market signals for a cleaner, greener transportation system. These are all high priority goals. Such a tax should be revenue neutral for optimum political feasibility. It’s not about raising money but giving market incentives.

But there are predictable foes. Here in Oregon, the Oregon Petroleum Association is one. They represent gas retailers and wholesalers across Oregon. As they say (here): "Today OPA has over 180 fuel marketer, dealer and associate members. OPA members account for more than 65% of all petroleum products sold in Oregon."  They are politically active. They have been fighting local gas taxes as the Eugene Register Guard reported on 1/14/09 (see here):

SPRINGFIELD — It took less than 24 hours for critics to emerge after the City Council on Monday announced that it may enact a 4-cent gas tax increase.

Councilors said the raise — which would bring the city’s gas tax from 3 cents to 7 cents per gallon — is the best way to save a swiftly draining roadwork fund.

But on Tuesday, the Oregon Petroleum Association, which represents gas station owners and wholesalers statewide, said it will make sure any gas tax the council may enact will be put to a public referendum in May.

The council will not vote on raising the gas tax until after a public hearing next month. A 4-cent increase would make Springfield’s gas tax the highest in the state; Eugene currently has the highest at 5 cents.

Should the council enact a higher tax, the opposition would have 30 days to gather 1,113 signatures from registered Springfield voters favoring a public vote, Springfield city recorder Amy Sowa said.

Local gas taxes are bad news for gas station owners because they make the cost of doing business wildly different in every city, and therefore are unfair, said Paul Romain, the executive director of the gas dealers group.

“It presents a competitive nightmare of stations in your area,” Romain said. “In (unincorporated) Lane county, a gas station owner pays 5 cents less than a station in Eugene and 3 cents less than a station in Springfield.”

Those stations that have to pay the tax still have to keep their prices much the same as those that pay no tax, meaning they have a far smaller profit margin, Romain said.

The mayor and councilors said they don’t buy that argument.

“It depends on a lot of factors about how pricing goes,” said Councilor Christine Lundberg, whose ward includes the ARCO station at Gateway Street and Belt Line Road that routinely sells some of the lowest-priced gas in the metro area. “You can go to any number of gas stations, no matter where they are, and you find a variety of prices.”

The council made it clear in Monday’s meeting that it would roll back part of the local tax if the state Legislature provides additional money for street preservation.

If more stable funding were found for city roads, Springfield would not need a higher gas tax ordinance, Mayor Sid Leiken said.

“We’ve got to figure out how to solve this one on our own,” he said. “It’s a tough one.”

That community members voted in favor of a gas tax increase in a city-sponsored online poll shows that Springfield residents are willing to ante up to preserve the city’s streets, he said. The poll was unscientific and people could vote more than once.

A 4-cent increase would bring in $1.1 million a year to Springfield’s street fund.

The statewide gas dealers group is experienced at fighting local gas taxes.

It was closely involved in overturning the Eugene City Council’s 2007 decision to raise the gas tax 3 cents, from 5 cents to 8 cents a gallon, in 2007.

Voters rejected the tax increase in a November referendum.

However, the association last May failed to collect enough valid signatures to reduce Eugene’s gas tax by an additional 2 cents a gallon.

The association is working on a referendum against a local gas tax ordinance in Pendleton. And it successfully campaigned for a 1.5-cent gas tax in the city of Tillamook to be referred to voters later this year.

The lobbying group would rather see a set statewide gas tax that would include a ban on cities and counties increasing the tax, Romain said.

As for the Oregon Petroleum Association’s influence on the 2009 legislative session, according to Oregon’s online ORESTAR, the OPA PAC made the following legislative contributions during 2008 to legislative candidates who won:

Friends of Dave Edwards (D)                                       $500

Scott Bruun for State Representative (R)           $2,000

Cliff Bentz for State Representative  (R)                 $500

Peter Courtney for State Senate (D)                     $1,000

Friends of Ted Ferrioli (R)                                       $1,000

Re-Elect Arnie Roblan (D)                                        $1,000

Friends of Terry Beyer (D)                                       $1,000

Friends of Jeff  Barker (D)                                            $500

Friends of Tobias Read (D)                                         $500

Friends of Bruce Hanna (R)                                   $1,000

Friends of Bill Kennemer (R)                                $1,000

Friends of Jim Weidner (R)                                  $1,000

Friends of Richard Devlin (D)                             $1,000

Friends of Rod Monroe (D)                                  $1,000

Friends of Dave Hunt (D)                                      $1,000

Friends of Tim Freeman (R)                                $4,500

George Gilman Campaign (R)                             $1,000

Friends of Dave Nelson (R)                                  $1,000

Committee to Re-Elect Bob Jenson (R)               $500

Committee to Re-Elect Greg Smith (R)                $500

Committee to Elect John E. Huffman (R)           $1,000

Friends of Richard Metsger (D)                              $1,000

Bruce Starr for State Senate Committee (R)      $1,000

 

Kissinger: "The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level."

Henry Kissinger in his Real Clear Politics article “The Chance for a New World Order” (here) calls for expanded engagement with China as the core of a new global order. He does not mention expanded educational exchanges but should. Our role at the state level in Oregon is to develop our Mandarin and study abroad in China programs.

Kissinger writes:

The role of China in a new world order is equally crucial. A relationship that started on both sides as essentially a strategic design to constrain a common adversary has evolved over the decades into a pillar of the international system.

China made possible the American consumption splurge by buying American debt; America helped the modernization and reform of the Chinese economy by opening its markets to Chinese goods.

Both sides overestimated the durability of this arrangement. But while it lasted, it sustained unprecedented global growth. It mitigated as well the concerns over China's role once China emerged in full force as a fellow superpower. A consensus had developed according to which adversarial relations between these pillars of the international system would destroy much that had been achieved and benefit no one. That conviction needs to be preserved and reinforced.

Each side of the Pacific needs the cooperation of the other in addressing the consequences of the financial crisis. Now that the global financial collapse has devastated Chinese export markets, China is emphasizing infrastructure development and domestic consumption.

It will not be easy to shift gears rapidly, and the Chinese growth rate may fall temporarily below the 7.5 percent that Chinese experts have always defined as the line that challenges political stability. America needs Chinese cooperation to address its current account imbalance and to prevent its exploding deficits from sparking a devastating inflation.

What kind of global economic order arises will depend importantly on how China and America deal with each other over the next few years. A frustrated China may take another look at an exclusive regional Asian structure, for which the nucleus already exists in the Asean-plus-three concept.

At the same time, if protectionism grows in America or if China comes to be seen as a long-term adversary, a self-fulfilling prophecy may blight the prospects of global order.

Such a return to mercantilism and 19th-century diplomacy would divide the world into competing regional units with dangerous long-term consequences.

The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level. The current crisis can be overcome only by developing a sense of common purpose. Such issues as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, energy and the environment demand strengthened political ties between China and the United States.

This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape trans-Pacific relations into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the immediate postwar period - except that the challenges now are more political and economic than military.

Big WOWO interviews Dave Porter about Mandarin programs

Well, I’ve had my first podcast interview. You can listen to my half hour interview with Byron Wong of the big WOWO blog here. It’s about my interest in and efforts to expand Mandarin language programs in Oregon.

Byron writes:

What I like most about Dave’s approach is that it’s hands-on.  He’s working with the government to promote and fund Mandarin programs because he believes Sino-American communication is going to be an important skill in the future.  I was resigned to the idea that a bilingual education would require private school tuition, and that may still be the case, but at the same time, we shouldn’t settle for the idea that public schools must necessarily provide a lesser education.  I think schools need to do more to break out of the Eurocentric, Euro-linguistic mindset, and I think it’s important that schools do more to ensure that our students will be able to communicate on a global level.  Languages reflect cultures, and they reflect mindsets.  There’s no better way to understand a people or a culture than through the language.  I agree with what Dave is doing, and I look forward to his future efforts to bring Mandarin to Portland schools.

Obama's half-brother speaks Mandarin, lives in China

What an interesting world!

 

President Obama has a connection to China that I didn’t know about. One of his eight half-siblings lives there and speaks Mandarin. His name is Mark Ndesandjo, and he just gave a piano concert in Shenzhen, China.

 

From The Huffington Post  article “Obama’s half brother performs in China” by William Foreman (here):

For the past seven years, Ndesandjo has been living in Shenzhen, a freewheeling city just across the border from Hong Kong. The announcement for his piano concert identified him as a strategic marketing consultant. He also helped start a chain of eateries in China called Cabin BBQ.

Ndesandjo has a thin mustache, shaved head and a gold stud in his left earlobe. He slightly resembles his half brother, and shares the same trim, athletic physique. He speaks Mandarin, is a vegetarian and practices Chinese calligraphy.

And he said Friday that he has just finished a novel called "Nairobi to Shenzhen," but as yet has no publisher.

Ndesandjo apparently wants a low-key life separate from Obama. No one mentioned his family when he was introduced at the charity concert and cocktail party sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China.

During brief remarks on stage, Ndesandjo mentioned that he would visit the U.S. in a couple days, apparently to attend Tuesday's presidential inauguration. He said if he didn't make the trip in time, he would embarrass his family.

From another article, we learn (here):

But although the kinship between the two men is bound to cause a sensation in China – as in their father’s native Kenya, no distinction is drawn between full and half brothers – they do not appear to be close.

Ndesandjo, who had an elite education in the United States, collecting a degree from Brown University, a masters in physics from Stanford and an MBA from Emory, did not share Obama’s emotional view of his roots.

And here is a youtube of Mark (guess which one he is):