With the rise of global commerce and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States has shifted its focus beyond Western Europe. And Stanford has kept pace with the changes.
Since 1989, overseas campuses have sprouted in Japan, Russia and South America. Now, planners in the Overseas Studies Program are looking to a new frontier: mainland China. If the details can be worked out, the Beijing campus would be a key component in President Gerhard Casper's push to make Stanford the foremost university of the Pacific Rim.
Under the Pacific Initiative, the University seeks to raise its profile in Asia through a series of measures. Among the highlights being proposed:
- The Asia/Pacific Scholars Program, which will accept 25 outstanding students from Asia to Stanford for two to three years of fully funded graduate education. The model is Oxford's Rhodes Scholarships.
- The establishment of a core faculty--in disciplines ranging from history to economics to political science--with expertise on Asian-Pacific issues.
- An expanded master's degree program in international policy studies, with a new focus on the Asia-Pacific region.
- Faculty and student exchanges with Asia's best research universities.
The scholars program is the most ambitious piece of the plan. The University aims to raise a $50 million endowment to ensure self-funding in the future. Development officers are pursuing a country-by-country approach; so far, about $10 million has been raised. The program begins on a pilot basis next fall, with a handful of students from China and Hong Kong.
To spread word of the Pacific Initiative, Casper has made three trips to Asia in the last four years, visiting Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. He's planning another trip next year. In July, he sent a letter to all alums living in Asia describing the University's efforts "to widen and extend the Stanford-Asia bridge."
That bridge has been traveled for more than a century. Stanford's first president, David Starr Jordan, was a frequent visitor to Asia as an ichthyologist. There were five Japanese students in the pioneer class of 1891. In a 1906 address at Stanford, philosopher William James spoke of the University's potential for "mediating between America and Asia and helping the more intellectual men of both continents to understand each other better." In more recent years, Asians have represented more than half of Stanford's undergraduate students from Asia--not including, of course, several thousand Asian Americans.
Some Asian alums credit Stanford with jump-starting the technology booms back home. Patrick Wang, MS '66, spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before returning to his native Taiwan in 1983 to launch his own start-up. He's hardly alone. Taiwan's Hsin-chu Science Park, modeled on the Stanford Industrial Park, is dotted with companies run by Stanford grads that have helped to spur that country's economic miracle.
As a sign of its commitment to Asia, Stanford recently named Chien Lee, '75, its first international trustee. A Hong Kong native and triple-degree holder from Stanford, Lee is a vital link to other Asian alums and potential donors. "Stanford's West Coast location provides a geographic advantage in terms of reaching out to the countries along the Pacific Rim," Lee says.
As for the Beijing campus, serious obstacles remain. Stanford will insist on personal and intellectual freedom for its students and staff, and the Chinese authorities may want to impose limits. If the politics can be negotiated, it's only a matter of time before a mischievious undergrad unfurls a BEAT CAL banner from the Great Wall.
Laura Locke, MA '92, is a freelance writer in San Francisco. She reported this story while on assignment in Hong Kong.
