 We're back. We're live 10 o'clock on a given Monday. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. And this is the middle way. We're talking about China's students in Minnesota, Minnesota, the middle of the country. You'd think the China students would be on the West Coast, the East Coast, but not true. Okay. And we have Becky Filins. You're going to talk to us about it. And Joan Brzezinski is going to talk about it. And Becky is going to introduce Joan all from the University of Minnesota. Becky, can you please introduce Joan? Jay, I'd be thrilled to. And thank you for kicking off the program. Joan Brzezinski is the executive director of the China Center at the University of Minnesota. As director of the China Center, Joan has assisted the state in their discussions with Hanban regarding a state level visiting teachers program. She has developed a number of professional development seminars and meetings for Chinese language teachers throughout the state. And Joan has worked with school districts to bring quality Chinese language programming to schools to enhance Chinese cultural offerings. Joan has made more than 30 trips to China and has visited most major regions, including throughout China, but also Hong Kong and Taiwan. Joan, thank you very much. I could have gone on and on, but there's a lot to say. And that's here. Becky, what is your scope of the show? Can you give us a handle on what we're going to talk about here? Yes. The scope of the show will focus on the Chinese students at the University of Minnesota, how they've been coming to the university for over 100 years, what that has meant to the students and the university, and to the relationships between the state and the country of China. Wow. Okay, Joan, welcome to the show. Nice to have you here. Joan, tell us about your program, the challenge, and tell us how long you've been involved in it and what you do for it. Okay, so I'm director of the China Center for the University of Minnesota. Center has been at the university since 1979, and its mission is to facilitate exchange between the University of Minnesota faculty, students, and scholars, and to promote understanding for Minnesotans and US people on China, as well as, right, promote understanding of Chinese people of the US. So our goals are to really do a lot of public diplomacy and a lot of exchange with China in order to build those bridges. Okay, well, I guess the university has a special pension for this since it's been doing it for so long. Why? Why is the university interested in bringing Chinese students over and having this program? Well, the history of the Chinese students at the university started rather early. We'd have over 100 years of exchange with China. Our changes began in 1914. The US in general had begun its relationship with China, bringing students over in 1872. The first 120 students came as a part of a Chinese education mission from the Qing Dynasty. That exchanged in last very long, and the government was toppled, and a republic was established in 1912. And then in 1914, our students came in the second wave of Chinese students that was primarily funded by the Boxer and Demedy scholarships. So those students arrived from Shanghai, and they came here to study mining primarily. And they were here for a short time on campus, and they were part of a group of about 700 students that came under that program during those early years in 1900. And fast forward 100 years, the university Minnesota has been in the top 10 of university institutions related to receiving Chinese students. I think one of the reasons for that is the university has always been strong in programs and degrees that Chinese students want to pursue in the early 1900s. That would have been mining and agriculture. And in the mid 1900s, it would have been engineering and mining and agriculture. And then towards the 20th century, the end of the 20th century, those degrees changed to business and computer science. And in the 2000s, here we're looking at students that are coming for a lot of health sciences and other types of pursuits, including management and other degrees in which universities had tremendous strength over the last 100 years. These undergraduates are graduates. And if so, what percentage of them are PhD candidates? Okay, so since I guess I don't know when, how are we counting that? The Chinese students, primarily in the early days, since 1979, let's say when we resumed our exchanges with China, primarily scholars and graduate students. The undergraduate student population didn't really begin to grow until like 2010. And at that point in time, well, I mean, they had been bits and pieces here and there and little new students coming on mostly private funding. And in 2010, the students, undergraduates and the graduate students sort of flipped. And from then on point and through today, the greater number of students on campus are undergraduate students. Oh, you know, we live in times that are different than 20 years ago. 20 years ago, my observation, I haven't made, you know, 9000 trips to China like you, but I have made three. And in the early 2000s, it was all optimism and light and and hopefulness and, you know, building better bridges, so to speak, you know, finding relationships, exchanging, you know, students both ways and professionals both ways. I was involved with some of that and I remember the optimism. So now maybe it's not so optimistic. I think Donald Trump had an effect on things and, you know, the whole, you know, isolationist movement in this country, including Minnesota, has probably changed that and the immigration policy and visas and the like has probably changed that. So, query, how has it changed that, if at all, in the past 20 years? It would seem to me that, you know, you have headaches that you didn't have 20 years ago. Yeah, I think the challenges for students to come to the U.S. have increased over the last five years, let's say. And those challenges are certainly on the visa level, how to get a visa to come to the United States. Certainly the pandemic has had a tremendous impact on student mobility, students going abroad and students coming from international countries to the U.S. The Chinese population, I would say, from about 2014 to in 2018, 2019, had been very stable. We had about 2,500 Chinese students on campus and that population is a little bit around 40%, I would say, of our total international student population. We, as a university, had a philosophy that we didn't want to over recruit from one area of the world and keep a balance of students and because Chinese people make up about 40% of the world's population and seem about right to keep that percentage there. So it's from 2018, though, going forward with the changes to visa rules and the uncertainty that was presented by a number of executive orders on whether or not students would be able to complete their degrees, if they had a return home every year to get a new visa to come back, not being certain whether or not they could or they couldn't and also the sort of threats to, I think, the curriculum practical training and the optional practical training programs that students can take advantage of while they're in the country to gain some experience working for a company or an institution that is in their field and so they can take that experience and then go on to further their careers elsewhere. Those programs were often under threat. I would say nothing really actually happened to the programs, but there was constant discussion at the political level about what to do about these programs and maybe shut them down. So I think when students are planning their degree program and they can't see a clear path, one to graduation and then after graduation it causes them certainly some hesitation before they commit to a fairly expensive overseas degree, right? So there's that and then I think recently in certain areas students, especially in STEM and other areas have higher scrutiny from the visa offices and the political and I wouldn't say I would say policies on terms of what tools they come from that kind of thing and that may deter a number of students as well, but in general I would say there have been a lot of obstacles to student participation, but I would say that we've been very pleased previous this year during the pandemic. We did primarily online for those students that weren't able to get visas and come online and remote learning. This year they're all welcome to come here. I know visa processes were delayed and lengthy, but a lot of students have arrived. I'm waiting for this year's enrollment numbers. I don't have them yet, but we think that although I'm sure there's been a fairly good drop in the number of students, but we still have a healthy population on. There must be a certain amount of competition in this area, because in fact they pay tuition and I imagine that if you're a parent in Beijing or Shanghai, you say I want my kid to go to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, what have you, the big national schools. I don't want him to go to a school in the middle of the country that is not Harvard and Yale and Stanford and I imagine that's competition for you. Also seems to me that the United States has made itself less attractive to a Chinese family, wants to send their kid to an American school. Maybe they'll decide on another country. I know that for the lawyers who take LLMs, I'm familiar with that. They'll go to Britain just as quickly. They'll go to Canada and that'll help them in the practice back in China. What's your thought about competition? What is the reality about competition between American schools and between American schools and schools in other countries? I can't speak specifically to the competition and recruitment scenario. I can tell you that, yes, the Chinese have far more options today than they ever have in terms of overseas schools. I would say the university ranks quite highly globally, but other universities have really also improved their rankings globally. I think they have lots of options. I think it's incumbent on a university to really think about the students that they're recruiting so that we're not competing with Yale and Harvard. Those students are not coming to the University of Minnesota, but we are competing with University of Michigan and Wisconsin and Illinois and maybe UCLA or University of Hawaii. I'm not really certain what attracts them, but I know that in certain areas, we have to really identify the students that one fit well for the University of Minnesota. The programs are the strongest for them, but they are the strongest for our programs. I think our recruitment efforts in terms of our Chinese students have always been really focused on trying to get to that group or that student population that is high quality, but is also a good fit for the university. What's the special sauce that you offer? Aside from the academic, I mean, is it housing? Is it the weather? Is it the excellent pizza parlors downtown? What is it that you believe they come for? Well, I think for a major tier one research university, we're kind of unique and I wouldn't say all together unique, but in that we are on urban campus and we sit very nicely in between the two cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis. We have access to all sorts of museums, entertainment and sporting and the usual sort of American cultural sort of feel. I think those things as well as we have at least Chinese restaurants on campus. I think that little bit of home as well as the sort of cosmopolitan urban environment that they get when they're here is a draw. I also think for the families of the Chinese students that are coming, they're looking at safety. I mean, every city has its issues and certainly Minneapolis isn't a city that doesn't, but I think overall they feel comfortable with the on-campus safety and on-campus environment. So those are I think our special sauces and draw and just our Midwestern friendliness people are very kind and open to, I think, foreign guests. A heart of America. So Becky, how much of what Joan has said so far you agree with and also what would you add to what Joan has said so far? I think I agree with Joan and I loved your question, Jay, about the secret sauce. I'm thinking after a hundred years there's probably also a number of legacy students who come to the university because family members did. I think that the university has a center in China, so there's a presence there that leads people to have a familiarity with Minnesota, so they know about it, they want to come. And I was interested in more of the recruiting activities, Joan. What exactly happens in terms of recruitment? Well, it's changing because of the pandemic. China travel is not really consistent, so instead of visiting high schools and talking and presenting to students in person, a lot of that's now being done online, which has got good and bad to it. Only from the standpoint is before the online or sorry the in-person recruitment seminars were largely on the shoulders of our two people in the Beijing office, but now when we go to this online format we can always bring in colleagues from the main campus so that they can hear directly from people in international students' scholars office or the college alt recruiter that they want to talk to is right there. So that works really well. It also benefits family members because when the programs are at school, the parents don't always get to attend, so they get to attend these online programs and that makes them happy. I think that's really good. We also have shifted to a more of a training model for high school counselors, and so our staff in the Beijing office works really closely with EducationUSA, which is a US embassy program, but they do a lot of interaction with high school counselors that are counseling kids that want to go international, so that we have them understand more about the University of Minnesota. They can clearly present it to their students, and then there's a connection that we can make that way too. Jay, we've had governors who have led trade missions to China, and I know that part of those trade missions have included emphasis on the research capabilities of the University of Minnesota, which Joan alluded to, so that's another feature that our global top corporations in conjunction with government support and the University. It's a compelling package when you put all of that together. Joan also mentioned safety as a feature or a reason why a student might come, and I did some research before we started that there were 3,800, I believe, incidents of anti-Asian racist incidents in Minnesota, I think over the last year. Joan, I'd like to know if the University is addressing that type of incident. Oh yes, this was obviously something that's very important to the China Center and our work, but also it's important to all of our colleagues across the system, and as Asian H has presented itself, either Minnesota or other places, the University has responded with messages of support and resources for those students who have. How do you stop these incidents? Do you prosecute? I don't know how much prosecution has been going on. I know that in some of the cases, especially like just recently, there was a defacing or vandalism of among Ultra Center in St. Paul, that these cases certainly are being prosecuted. There are just so many different types of incidents, and I can't comment on the research that Becky's done, nor can I comment on specific incidents, but I can say that we have campus resources for these students to find support and counseling, as well as the China Center and the International Student Scholars Office is presented to talking and listening sessions for AAPI staff and for students. That was earlier this last spring, and then there has been a number of community organizations that have gathered together to also present programs on this, so I think there is a large number of people doing as much as they can, and it isn't an issue that is very short. Well, how do the Chinese students feel about it? I mean, and by the way, it's not just Minnesota, it's the country. All I got to do is open the newspaper on any Monday morning, and they'll see that, you know, things happening all over the place, sometimes or coverage, sometimes less, but there's a baseline of this sort of thing all over the country. I mean, are they angry? I'm angry, but that's just me. I don't know how you guys feel. You're probably angry too. How do the Chinese students feel? I would say they're worried, and they're apprehensive. They don't necessarily feel as welcome as they may have when they first came, or if they've just arrived, they don't really know how to navigate some of that. It's difficult, I think, coming from a cultural majority to a cultural minority. And so it is also a bad experience that I think sort of sets them apart. And so that I obviously more conversation and dialogue with them to help them feel that they're welcome and they have a place on campus, I think is important. And the messaging that comes from our president and beans and other, you know, leadership at the university is important. But I tell them that tell them there's a lot of people in the country who care about them and want them to have a good experience here. And if you ever want to put them on a talk show with us, we're happy to tell them in person. I wanted to ask you about, you know, exchange programs, you know, because it should be, in my view, both ways. We had a show with a fellow last week who went to, he went to speak, he went to teach English in Shanghai. And he was there two years right on through COVID, right through. Only came back a week or two ago, had a great experience, and it was a great discussion. And now he's fluent in Mandarin, which I expect you are too, Joan, I would expect that. Anyway, my point is, though, that, you know, you really like to see it going both ways. If they come here and reset a certain number of students out of the University of Minnesota back there. So now you have a diplomatic connection, regardless of what governments do, students make great diplomats. Is this happening? It was. I think right now it's hard to travel to China. There's so much in the quarantine and you get there, you have spent three weeks before you can get out the hotel door. So that is a challenge right now for students. But frankly, yes, the University has a lot of different programs for students to travel overseas or learning abroad. Participation rate is huge. We also do a number of what we call custom programs, where faculty lead student groups to China. They complete part of their coursework in China with their faculty. And it is a really popular thing to do. And hundreds of students participate in that type of fashion. The old traditional and the study year abroad sort of thing isn't really a thing anymore, but students will go for semesters and private things. And the University of Minnesota has a Chinese language flagship program, which is a U.S. government sponsored language initiative that comes from National Security Agency through the program. And it is a program to develop high-level fluencies in Mandarin in a particular degree. And so, or a field of study. And so those students have done tremendously well and they spend a ton of time both in Taiwan and China other places. So it's quite robust that way. So you're happy to include Taiwanese students in this program too? Oh yeah. And the mainland Chinese, do they have trouble with that? No, generally not. I mean, everyone is at the University to study their degree and their thing. And I think that political conversation is left for other times. But and then I would say that the China Center also developed a China Bridge challenge in this last year because we saw the students were arriving and we also saw students weren't going. We wanted them to be able to connect with each other across the internet and follow a topic and present on a solution to an issue or a challenge that both the U.S. and China face. And we had six teams of students. All of them had to have at least one international Chinese student on their team and they competed with this case competition. And it was a really tremendously successful, I think, presentation. We plan to do it again this next year. And I'm excited to try to, like I said, build that cross-cultural team promotion and communication and get them working together so that even if they can't be in the same classroom, they can work together. That's great. And today, is there living arrangements, you know, diverse or do they hang out with each other? Do you take any steps to intermingle them? You know, there are obviously there are programs like honor programs and things like that nature that students tend to live in the same dorms if they're in that same program. And I'm sure the Chinese students participate as that as well. And like most students, when they arrive on campus, they live in a dorm with other students and probably non-Chinese roommates from opposite ends of the world. And then after that, though, many students move off campus and then they might move into an apartment with other Chinese students. But I think the university, especially our international students and scholars office work on a myriad of ways to try to connect students across cultures and involve them in different programs. One of the things that comes to mind is they have a world coffee hour where students representing different countries take a responsibility to develop a program. That's great. That's wonderful. Becky, I'd like you to address one area if you would with Joan. And that is, what are these students do after? They head right back to China, they stick around, they get jobs like, you know, I'm thinking of Chang Wan, he's made a life in the United States. So how many of them do that? How many of them are able to get through whatever immigration obstacles there are and get a job and make a life and have a family and buy a house and all that? And how many just go back? Why don't you ask Joan that question? I'd love to ask her that, Jay. Joan, do you have a way, do you know how many of the students who go through the University of Minnesota are able to stay in the United States to establish a career, to spend their life in the United States? What do we know about them once they leave the University? Well, as I mentioned earlier, there are these programs called Curriculum Practical Training, Optional Practical Training in Students, can stay up to a year after their degree is concluded to work in a company or an institution to work in their field. At that point, should they want to continue to be in the United States, they have to have an employer that wants to give them an H1B visa, a working visa. And so that's really up to them and the employer and whether they choose to stay or not is really probably a function of whether or not they get that offer, but it may be also be a function of whether or not there's a better offer in China. And many companies are international or global companies. And so a, you know, a Medtronic may hire a student here to employ them in China, because they have that ability to do this. And a lot of these companies cross the world with their hiring. So it's really difficult to say, because, you know, in the 1980s, people stayed because they could and they had opportunities to stay. It was more of a, they didn't see a better offer or a good enough offer in China or with a company over there. And so it would stay. But nowadays, most Chinese students do their training and then they kind of return to China, either through international employment, or just to go back and work a job in China, because China's economy or less, several decades has really grown. And in the last recent years has really been booming. So there's a lot of opportunities for them that, you know, may not even exist here. You know, Joe, I'm just wondering, you know, one question about the future, always about the future, you know, and the future depends on, you know, the administration in Washington, depends on the relationship between the US and China, which has a certain amount of pressure right now. And your program, that matter, all the programs in the country, relating to Chinese students are, you know, a function of that relationship. And so you have to keep your eye on that ball, and you have to make plans around that ball, and you have to be thinking about how, what the future of the relationship is, so you can plan the future of the program. What are your thoughts? I don't have a crystal ball. I think, like, I think you've mentioned this earlier in our little chat before the program started, China's not going anywhere. And certainly, there are a lot of universities in China that are very good universities, and students will attend them. But I think they're good universities here as well. And I think the option to go to the best university you can always be in the Chinese students mind. And if that university happens to be in the University of Minnesota, then great. And then we welcome them. And if it's in England, that's fine too. I think the higher education field will be competing for, like you said, competition being much greater across universities, across countries, be competing for a more finite group of students. And I think that those students have lots of options. So our goal should be to be the best university that they can attend and attract those students. What strikes me that Chinese students, like immigrants in general, work hard. They study hard. They're into achievement. That's their life experience up to the point they arrive in Minnesota. And so they help the university by raising the bar, raising the intensity of their work, study their research, and so forth. So it's attractive. As a group, it seemed to me they're very attractive because they make for a better university to have them around. Do you see it that way? Yeah, I think international students, but Chinese especially, make it a better university. We want to welcome diverse ideas and people from all over the globe to come and to enrich our campus, enrich our dialogue, and to give our students who are homegrown information about global society and the things that they'll need to know to enact and work with people across the globe. I think building global competencies requires having a healthy and diverse international student population on campus. And that really means China too. We have to have a lot of really excellent Chinese students here. We work to get that done. Yeah, and this country ought to be involved in entertaining them, accommodating them, teaching them, giving them a career when they want one, a life in the U.S. And we ought to find places, including China, where we can send our young people to learn about the world. Travel is broadening. But before we get on to the summary here, I just want to tell you a short story. A friend of mine after high school went to China. He was a very adventurous fellow. He went to China and he learned Mandarin. And he drove a taxi cab until the authorities found him. And they said, no, no, no, no, you cannot be here driving a taxi cab without appropriate approvals. You have to go now. And he said, where would I go? They said, why don't you go to Taiwan? Go to Taiwan. He says, I can't go to Taiwan. I don't speak I. Who's starting? Okay, we're out of time, Becky. Can you summarize and add your thoughts to this and then we got to go? Yes, the University of Minnesota is celebrating 107 years of welcoming Chinese students to the campus. The degrees over time have changed from mining and agriculture and engineering to still include those but to be broader and include business and computer science and health sciences. What started out as a program for scholars and graduate students has broadened to include a greater number of undergraduate students at this time. There are challenges today. There are visa challenges. There are pandemic challenges. Joan and her program are overcoming those, keeping the program strong through bridge programs and practical education. The university is competitive. It's not Harvard or Yale, but we are a very strong competitor in recruiting international students because we know that international students makes a better campus. It raises our visibility and our credentials and we hope to see another 100 years of the students coming. Amen to that. And then my one phrase in Mandarin is straight down Chu Cheng, which means we will find a way. Okay? Xie Xie to both of you and Sai Jian. Thanks for coming on Think Tech. Aloha.