 Good afternoon or good evening, you can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman, you can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German or Turk or Japanese, but anyone from any corner of the earth can come to live in America and become an American. Life from Beijing, China is a nation of immigrants, a bivocally talk show program featuring the lives of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants, knowledge, diversity, and inclusion, created by Singtan Kowaii and Kingsville the Law Office. I am absolutely thrilled today to have our guest, my mentor and professor, Meredith McQuaid, associate vice president and dean of international programs at the University of Minnesota. Welcome, Dean McQuaid. Welcome, Dean McQuaid. So happy to have you today. Thank you, Chaim. It is just delightful to be here and it's wonderful to see you again. Thank you so much. I first met you during a campus tour at Myeongdong Hall in the summer of 2003. When Professor David introduced me to you and informed you that I had been just admitted to the University of Minnesota Law School, the tour and the meeting with you persuaded me to turn off other offers and accept your offer, one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. When I first began my legal education at UofM Law School, you were the dean of students and professor for introduction to American law. You have been my professor, my dean, supervisor, supervisor, mentor, and our leader for the past 20 years. I learned so much from you, Dean McQuaid, including diligence, confidence, perseverance, and loyalty. I want to take this opportunity to thank you once more. Do everything you have done for the University of Minnesota, for us, and for all the community. Thank you so much. You have been a role model and excellent leader for all of us. Thank you, Chaim. It's very flattering and very kind of you to say I've had a great career and part of the wonder of my job has been meeting wonderful immigrants like yourself. So thank you for that introduction. Thank you very much. I'm very proud to be your student. And today it is an absolutely privileged and honored to interview you for the talk show. You know the talk show is called Nation of Immigrants, but we do interview a lot of descendants of immigrants and you have a very long, you are a native of Minnesota and you have a long career with higher education. And I please allow me just to read a short bio your assistance sent to me. You have served Dean McQuaid served with the dictation at the University of Minnesota for decades. Dean McQuaid has been the University's senior international officer since 2007. Under her leadership, global programs and a strategic alliance staff have collaborated broadly to inspire students engagement and to advance innovative initiatives, uniting us all in the work of internationalization. Dean McQuaid's work at the University of Minnesota has been enhanced through her positions at professional organizations, including the president of NAFSA, Association of International Educators, board member and committee chair of international association of international education administrators, chair of the senior international officer groups of the Big Ten Academic Alliance and consultant on internationalization for American Council on Education. This is just a very, very brief version of your bio. If we have to read your bio, we're going to take the entire 30 minutes of the showtime. But I believe that our audience already get the impression that you have been an international educator all of your career. You have worked with many, many students of scholars and academic staff from all over the world. But my first question to you, Dean McQuaid, is you are native of Minnesota. You have received education and you worked in Minnesota. So how do you know how your ancestors settled in Minnesota? Did they settle in Minnesota or other parts of the country first? Well, my family, I must admit, were not very good about tracing our genealogy, but my mother was born in Frazee, Minnesota, which is pretty much the middle of the state, up near Park Rapids in that area. And her heritage is one half German and one half Irish, and both of those immigrant groups contributed a lot to the development of Minnesota. I know Minnesota is known for having more of the Scandinavian immigrants, but there were many Irish and many German as well. My father's family is 100% Irish, and it was my father's grandfather, my great grandfather that immigrated from Ireland, and my father's entire family grew up in New Hampshire. And they were all newspaper men in those days. All of the men were in the newspaper business, and my father was as well when he married my mom and moved to Minnesota to be with her. He began working for what was then just the Minneapolis Tribune, and he was employed by the newspaper all of his life, all of his professional life. So, yes, I'm a Minnesotan through and through, but German and Irish heritage. Thank you so much for sharing. I think one of the best reason Minnesota is such a well-run state is we have a lot of a lot of German, you know, descendants. It's a super technical, super scientific that the state is a very well-managed university is well-managed. Thank you very much. And so you grew up in Minnesota. Could you tell us a little bit about your childhood and schooling in the state? Sure. I'd be happy to. I'm fifth in a family of eight children. So my parents married and had four children before me, and then there were three more after me. We were lower middle class. My father was a newspaper man, as I mentioned. My mother was busy raising those eight children, so didn't actually go to work until most of us were out of high school. I went to a very small Catholic school for my first six years of primary education and then public school. I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a linguistics degree, and then I went on to law school and we'll talk a little bit about that later. But it was all very local, and I feel so fortunate to have had good teachers. And despite the fact that we had a large family without much money, I have a very fond memories of my childhood. I grew up, there wasn't much money, but there was a lot of love and a very great emphasis on education. Absolutely. Thank you so much. You have been after school, you have began to work and you went to law school, you have a very long career in education. And could you just summarize the path you took to go to the position you hold today? Sure. You know, I'm often asked because as you point out, I have a long biography because I'm just getting older. But I'm often asked by young people how I got to this position, which is both extremely rewarding, but also relatively high within the administration. So I went, I graduated with a linguistics degree from the University of Minnesota, as I mentioned. And when I was nearing the end of maybe a senior end of my junior year, the University of Minnesota announced that it was launching the first program in Chinese for undergraduate students in Tianjin at Nankai Dashui. And this was a brand new opportunity. There had been no Americans into China since prior to Mao assuming leadership of the country. And so this was a great opportunity to see China at a time when few Americans had, wasn't very expensive. It was for a summer where we would go and learn Chinese in a very intense environment. And I put the money together and I joined the program and it truly did change my life. I came back then and finished my linguistics degree. And then I moved to Japan. I wanted to learn both Chinese and Japanese. And with my linguistics degree, it was pretty easy for me to get a job teaching English. So I lived in Tokyo from 1983 to 1986. And then when I left Japan, I took a 13 month trip, 36,000 kilometer trip around the world by motorcycle. And I came back to Minnesota in about January of 1987. And I started law school in 1988. And with all of that experience of crossing borders and living in countries, crossing countries. Customs, what's required to enter a country, leave a country. I became very interested in immigration law. And so following law school, I did practice immigration law for about four years. And then I was hired by the University of Minnesota Law School to be its first international program officer. And so that was a first career, that was the first time anyone had been hired in that role at the law school. It's always exciting to be the first to do a job because you get to design it yourself. And then so I did that job for 15 years. And then this senior international officer position opened up the job I now have, a brand new position. It was one of the first universities in the country to have such a position. Now almost every university has the equivalent of me. And so I took that job 15 years ago. And it's just been, I have to say, I've been extremely fortunate to have opportunities that I was also pretty excited to just try something new. And I often tell young people that, that if you, you know, even if you have a career path in mind, you ought to keep your options open and take chances because they just might lead to a whole new opportunity that you had never previously even imagined. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I think Ken Jin was very fortunate to have you. China was very fortunate to have you. U of M law school and the way the international students are extremely fortunate to have you as our mentor. But for today, I sent the poster, this program poster to some Chinese alumni, alumni groups. And then that here everybody says, oh, say hi to the McQueen. And we love her, you know, so heartwarming to serve her to see her face again. And you are just to become the simple for our American experience. You know, many international students come first came to the U of M and to the law school. The first person they knew was you. And you taught them law, you taught them American culture, you taught them American history and professionalism, everything. So it's just we could thank you enough for you to do the internationalization, not only for the U of M and community, but also for the students, international students, for them to be truly understand American culture and American law and American education. Thank you very much. I'm extremely, extremely glad to hear you talk about immigration law practice. And then this program is the nation of immigrants and you practice law after law school. And could you tell us a little bit about your with your immigration law practice, mainly employment based, family based. It's an asylum related or refugee related or so which area you focus on and which part of the immigration law practice you enjoy? Well, I was so fortunate. I worked for a law firm that actually no longer exists now, but it had some of the best immigration lawyers in the country that were working here in the Twin Cities. And again, this was in the early nineties. And so because I was a new associate, I didn't have a lot of experience. I pretty much had this amazing opportunity to do a little bit of everything. I had the opportunity to do employment based immigration. So we would work with Minnesota companies who are hiring talent from overseas. I often then work to bring the spouses and children of those employees into Minnesota. I had the great fortune to work on some asylum applications, particularly for people from the Southeast Asian region. So some of the monks, some of Laotian. I actually worked on behalf of a very young Chinese, but he was 16 at the time, who was smuggled over on a ship. And the authorities found this group of young men that were being held against their will and forced to do a certain kind of work. We worked on an asylum case for that young man. And so we got to see a little of everything. I also did just insurance defense work, which is fun and interesting as a lawyer. But the more the better part of my practice was this range of immigration work that I was able to do, and it was extremely rewarding. Thank you so much. It's I part of the immigration law as well. And but I'm very just only focus on employment, basic immigration, other hearing from you. I think I'm going to try other areas as well. I saw a lot of you just meet the nicest people who are hardworking and want a new chance at life. And so you'll hear great stories and just meet wonderful, enthusiastic people who, as you have already pointed out, typically make our country even better. Thank you very much. Thank you for seeing that. Now let's turn to education and as a senior international educator. I have this question for you and by myself as a teacher, I teach at U of M and other schools. And but I keep reading this theory about the new skills the students need to function in the 21st century, the so-called four C's. The creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking. And unfortunately, none of the C's we can really teach to the students. The students have to work hard to figure it out. And what do you view as a senior educator and what does the student need to function and to be a professional in the 21st century? And how what are the essential skills for the students, not only American students, but international students as well in your view? You know, it's a great question and it's really true that what we often teach in the classroom, you know, from primary school upward are sort of the facts and the the the non. Right, the left side of the brain activity. So that is the analytical, the logical. Now, of course, if you go into design or any kind of graphic arts, you won't necessarily be focused only on logic or or or sort of linear thinking. But for most of us, we're raised to really learn the practical side. And that's what school teaches us. And that's what we get tested on. But there's this great book that I often refer to. And it's by Daniel Pink. I really I recommend this to all the young people I know. He's he's written many books. This one is a whole new mind. And his theory is that as society progresses, as a country like the United States has moved through the industrial age into what we have now, that the left brain skills really can be learned by people all over the world. That's why many of our jobs have left the United States. But the right brain skills are the ones that we need to practice and be good at. So, for example, he says it's not necessary. It's not enough to just learn argument, which is good for lawyers. But you also have to learn how to tell a story. So it's we need to learn the essence of persuasion and communication in order to move people to our side. And the his biggest point, I think, is this idea about that it's not just logic that we need to learn, but empathy. So that even though we feel that logic can is all we need to make a decision, we also have to learn how to share that knowledge with people in a way that they can appreciate. And his final point, I won't say much more about this. His final point is that we also learn to know why things matter to people. What what is it about a particular activity or object that brings meaning to someone's life? And that meaning could be different between you and me and a third person. But those are the skills that we must just encourage young people to consider as they age. So high school, college, postgraduate, all of the things that make us human and make our lives more interesting are not necessarily what's taught in books. And so we need to work together. As you say, not much of this can be taught, but we can put people in situations and ask them to consider what it means to be persuasive or how to tell a story instead of just present facts. And I think all of that is really relevant to preparing students for the future. Beautifully said, Demacrate, I couldn't agree with you more. And looking at the AI and looking at the current discussion about AI replacing the human being and even in education. And I see I feel something was missing discussion was missing the empathy. And I'm glad you pointed that out at the 24th century. And previously as well, the empathy is a very big part of human communication. And it's vitally important for people to to understand each other and to probably not necessarily love each other. But not not hate each other and the immigration law. I think that when the students asked me about AI replacing law practice, I said, I don't see that going to happen, you know, is even some parts some procedure might be replaced, but the constitutional law, immigration law and even other parts of the law, the criminal law and need a tremendous amount of empathy to for the client and the professional to communicate. So that's, I do not think that it will. The AI can't get empathy in any time. So thank you so much for your for your insights. Since I was a law student of youth and I went to the same law school and as you went to and it's a law school. It's a very that's that's us, you know, almost 20 years ago. You were my dean at the dean of the dean of the students at the law school. I was your student and you haven't changed a bit. You know, it seems like just yesterday, Chong, to be honest, I remember the day very well. Yep. Exactly. I remember that that was I at the science museum, I believe. When I was a law student, a law student and you told us how to be professional, how to memorize the black light law and how to find the law and how to think like a lawyer. There was a book about legal education called the purpose of legal education is to preserve the status quo and perpetrate the hierarchy. In law school, we are very conservative, even we are progressive. But the purpose of legal education is to preserve the current status current system is not to revolutionize it, not to radicalize it and not to overthrow it. So now we get to the bigger question. What do you think is the purpose of education and or the purpose of legal education in your view? And I honestly, I can't understand this question. I don't I don't think I have an answer to as for the purpose of education. What do you think, Demokry? Well, I think, you know, I don't know that law school education is designed to preserve the status quo. I think it in law school, we learn what the status quo is. We learn how we got to it, particularly as we look to precedence under common law. We can see the evolution of an idea or an attitude, say, for example, for the enfranchisement of women, the enfranchisement of black people, actually, all people of color, because so much of the property and and and rights, all rights were were really given only to white men. And so we learn what the status quo is and how we got there. But I think law students are encouraged to be disruptors in the sense that working within a system, we can actually change it. We have to know the basis for where how we got here. But we also know that step by step, we can make changes in the law that positively influence society. I think some non lawyers may perceive us as conservative because things take so long, but things take long. Change takes a long time when we're talking about the legal system because its impact is so great. And so I think those kinds of changes can't be done quickly because it needs so much. We need to really sort of it can't move until society is ready for it to move. And so it's both the societal pressures that come from all kinds of sources. And then there's the legal element. And those two things really have to intersect. And then we can sort of ratchet society forward. You know, sometimes it's up one step forward, two steps back, but lawyers have the capacity to positively influence the law that is the construction of our civil society. And so I think there's a way to be positive and kind disruptors in changing the status quo, but in a way that's at a pace that people can tolerate. I love the word you use, kind disruptors. You have to be part of the system in order to change it. I think we are quite fortunate to live and function in a system that will allow this kind of change in Minnesota and in the United States. And other systems, not so much, thank you very much. We're towards the end part of our program, but there are a few questions I do want to ask you. Your first visit to Tianjin, one of my favorite cities in China. And I was walking in the British concession last week. I absolutely love it. See the European architectures and Astor hotel for the British hotel built by the settlers in 1862. Just think about it. So your first visit to China and Tianjin in the 1980s, when was the last time you visited China? So within my capacity as the senior international officer for the University of Minnesota, I went in 2008, 2018. We took a number of deans with us, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and the Dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and visited a number of the top universities in China. Both universities that we had relationships with to introduce these deans and then other universities that we wanted to have relationships with. So that was a fabulous trip. And then I went in 2019 and that was to talk with the Han Bang about our Confucius Institute closing. So those were my last two trips. And then there was another trip. We were ready to go on another trip in 2021 or 2022 when COVID hit. So I haven't been back since and it makes me sad because I've had just so many experiences in China. And as I've already said, my experience there in 1980 was had a huge impact on my life. And so I have a great fondness in my heart for China and the Chinese people. That's for a kind of a thank you so much. I can assure you that all of your students, not only LM students, JD students at law school, but all U of M alum in China, thousands of them are waiting for you to revisit. And you will receive the warmest welcome after the reopening of China. And we are going to throw the best party for you. And please return at your convenience. Well, now that's a difficult question. Do you think we cannot overly simplify the US-China relationship? But it appears it's getting more and more difficult for collaboration and even ideas change in not only in the past few during the COVID, but generally speaking for the past few years and a decade. Do you think the golden age of education, collaboration and exchange between U.S. and China have already passed? Oh, Chong, I sure hope that's not true. You know, if you look at the history of China and America and our relationship, I've heard it referred to as frenemies, you know, the combination of friend and enemy. I think both America and China need one another. And what our two governments do obviously has an impact on how the average citizen in each country can do to continue relationships. I don't think our current sort of cold war or impasse that I think we seem to be living under will last forever. I don't know how long it'll last. But the thing I just always keep remembering is that education is the best form of soft diplomacy there is. Despite the impasse, we do have Chinese students and scholars still coming to the United States. And we do have U.S. students traveling again to China. And it's those daily experiences that those individuals will have that will have the long-lasting effect, you know, to to think back to 1980 when I met my first Chinese friends and we would ride our bicycles at night to go out and get fried donuts. That is how I got to know the spirit of Chinese people. And as you said, all the Chinese people I've met both at the law school and now across the university, those individuals are having experiences that teach them what Americans are like, good and bad, what our society is like, good and bad. And it's those messages, those lessons people are going to remember long after they've gone back to pick up their careers in our respective countries. So there's definitely a slowdown in that relationship, but it won't last forever. And people like you and I have to really keep working to share what we know about one another's countries and people with everyone we know, our relatives, our friends and to persuade people that our governments are not necessarily representative of the hearts and minds of their people. And any in any way we can share what we know about the people in each country, I think will help towards breaking down this current situation. I think we have to be patient. And I think we have to hope for the best. I totally agree. Thank you very much. Very encouraging. And I think this trip with this current trip I'm taking, I think some I see some positive, you know, signals. So I look forward to see when I return to the states. Thank you. We normally conclude our show with two generic questions for our distinguished guests. One is what do you think the sum of the formative steps you took in your earlier days, in your teens and the 20s to become you today? That's a hard question. I think that because I was born in the middle of a large family, I was encouraged to take risks. I wasn't the oldest. I didn't have the big weight of that, that often oldest children do. I was smack in the middle of a tribe, a big, big group of kids. And so I was encouraged to try things without too much risk. I could always blame it on my brother. And then as I got older, I really think just jumping at opportunities that appeared before me without, you know, I think there's always an element of risk to any jumping at any opportunity. But if you give it as much thought as you can and in your gut, in your stomach, you feel like this is a good chance. It didn't fit into the plan you had. But here it is right before you. I really think as a young person before you've got, you know, house payments or a spouse and children. I think if you if you have opportunities that feel like this is exciting and I can't think of a good reason not to do it, that you should do it. The these these opportunities don't come along very often and they will change the trajectory of your life in small ways and in big ways. Important advice. You are the most adventurous people I have known. We try to learn everything from you. You are a very disciplined, professional, big, hard leader, but which are extremely adventurous of spirit. We try to learn to be professional from your teaching and the adventure spirit part is very hard to learn. I'll be honest. A final question. Any particular book or movie you're enjoying at the moment you want to recommend to our audience? Yeah, I just love to read. I read a lot. I read primarily nonfiction, but lately I've read some great novels as well. I will again recommend Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind. It's old now. It's like 2008, maybe, but the the the message, the import of it remains. And I refer to it quite often, actually. I also just finished an amazing book called Breath by James Nester. I hope I got that right about the importance of breathing correctly and how the way we breathe and how we breathe affects how we feel. It's really it was impactful. I'm going to read it a second time. I just finished a book called This is Happiness by Niall Williams, I think, an Irish novelist. And it is one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read and his writing is incredible. So I could go on. Honestly, I just I just love to read. And I do think one of the ways I learn about books is asking other people what they recommend. So I think keep reading everybody and Kindle, Hardcover, whatever. You can learn so much from books. Thank you so much. Great recommendation. I will definitely check them out. Well, we are have this great opportunity to interview you, to have you on our show, DemonQuit International Educator, my professor, our mentor and our leader at U of M. And thank you so much for your time. And I just couldn't thank you enough for everything for the past. Thirty years, you have taught me and taught my classmates and taught my colleagues at U of M and in the community. Thank you so much. It's great to see you. And I look forward to catching up with you when I return to the cities. Thank you, Chang. This has been a lot of fun and it's just always a pleasure to talk to you. And we're just extremely proud of you being a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. So thank you. I'm lucky. Thank you, DemonQuit. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.