The creation of the
Hopkins-Nanjing Center took a giant leap of faith. A
graduate
program in international studies jointly run by two
universities, even two such prestigious ones
as Johns Hopkins and Nanjing University, was certainly not
assured of success in the early
1980s.
United States and China relations were not what they
are today, and China had only just
opened its doors to the outside world. Very few people in
China spoke English, and the
country's culture presented more mystery than fact to
Americans. Likewise, citizens of China
knew little about the United States. So, who would attend
this new center, and would it even
survive the decade? some questioned.
Survive and thrive it did, and this month the center
celebrates a milestone birthday and
two decades of success.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and
former Chinese Foreign Minister
Qian Qichen will give the keynote addresses at the 20th
anniversary celebration of the
Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies on
Saturday, June 23, in Nanjing,
China. Many senior Johns Hopkins officials, including
President William R. Brody, who will
deliver remarks, will also attend the celebration.
The Hopkins-Nanjing Center is operated jointly by the
Johns Hopkins University Paul H.
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and
Nanjing University. The center has more
than 1,600 alumni, many of whom have gone on to play
significant roles in U.S.-China relations
and become diplomats, professors, heads of industry and
nongovernmental organizations, and
journalists.
The center's alumni cannot quite be credited with
shaping modern China, but they have
played a part.
"Twenty years ago, it would have been unimaginable for
the Johns Hopkins leadership to
envision the China that we will be visiting in June," said
SAIS Dean Jessica P. Einhorn this
month. "For Nanjing University and ourselves, this is a
celebration rich with meaning and
excitement."
At the anniversary celebration and reunion, the two
universities will present Kissinger
and Qian with the Hopkins-Nanjing Center Award for
Outstanding Contributions to Cultural
Understanding Between the United States of America and the
People's Republic of China.
Committed to continuing lively bilateral discourse, the
center established the award to honor
individuals who have positively influenced Sino-American
relations.
Kissinger is widely credited with opening diplomatic
relations between the United States
and China during his secret trip to Beijing in 1971, paving
the way for President Richard
Nixon's official visit the following year. Qian has been
involved with the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the People's Republic of China for the past 30
years. He made significant
contributions to developing China's relationships with
foreign countries, particularly the
former Soviet Union and the United States, over the course
of his long diplomatic service.
Former JHU President Steven Muller first envisioned
the center back in 1977. He
wanted to replicate somewhere in Asia the success of the
SAIS Bologna Center
— a full-time
graduate school in Bologna, Italy, that was established in
1955. He viewed China as the ideal
location as it was, in his words, "the country of the
future" and a burgeoning world power with
which the United States needed to foster positive
relations.
"We also felt that the new center should not be in the
capital city, Beijing, or Shanghai
but another major city with a prominent university that
would be our partner," Muller said last
week. "We saw that Nanjing [University] could be that for
us."
Muller's proposal did not gain initial traction, but
two years later a breakthrough was
made when a delegation of 12 Chinese university presidents
visited the United States, among
them Kuang Yaming, then president of Nanjing University.
Kuang had heard of Chinese-born
Hopkins physics Professor Chih-Yung Chien and wanted to
meet him. Chien then arranged for
the visiting presidents to make Johns Hopkins the first
stop on their tour and, quite simply,
out of that meeting a relationship was born.
The two universities began serious discussion of a
jointly run center in 1981. Muller and
then SAIS Dean George Packard led the talks on JHU's
behalf, and in late September of that
year the two schools signed an agreement for the
establishment of the Nanjing University-
Johns Hopkins University Center for Chinese and American
Studies.
The Hopkins-Nanjing Center opened its doors in
September 1986 and was one of the
very first joint academic ventures between China and the
United States. Twenty-four
American students and 40 Chinese students enrolled in the
first cohort of the certificate
program.
The center today is considered the most prestigious
and largest facility in the world
devoted exclusively to education for future leaders of the
Sino-American relationship. In fall
2006, the center grew considerably with the opening of the
Samuel Pollard Building, a state-
of-the-art 11-story structure that added 100,000 square
feet of new classroom, library,
office, meeting and residential space to the campus, as
well as a new auditorium and
conference center.
The center annually gives approximately 130 students
from the United States, China and
other countries the opportunity to live together and pursue
graduate studies. American and
other international students focus on contemporary China in
courses taught by Chinese
professors in Chinese, while Chinese students study the
United States and the international
system in English with U.S. and international
professors.
The center's library is the only uncensored, open
stacks library in China and features
more than 85,000 volumes, half in English and half in
Chinese.
The existence of such a library was unheard of in
China in the 1980s and is still a rarity
today. Muller said that the library was actually a
potential deal breaker, as Johns Hopkins
would not agree to the partnership without its creation. He
said that he is very happy the
Chinese officials acquiesced.
"Now, after 20 years, the center is thriving, and I
feel like a proud parent whose child
has grown up and turned out well," said Muller, who plans
to attend the ceremony with his wife,
Jill McGovern. "I'm delighted to be able to participate in
the celebration of the center's 20th
anniversary and its recent expansion."
Kathryn Mohrman, executive director of the
Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Johns Hopkins,
said that the draw for students continues to be the
uniqueness of the center's offerings and
culture.
"The appeal for American citizens is the ability to
understand how the Chinese think
about such issues as U.S.-China relations and Asian
economics from Chinese professors who
can offer a different perspective than their American
counterparts," she said. "Also, quite
frankly, they feel their language ability will go up
considerably in such an immersive setting,
which it will. The benefit to the Chinese students is they
get to understand the American
perspective and significantly improve their English
language skills without having to leave
China."
The school currently offers a one-year graduate
certificate and, since fall 2006, a two-
year master of arts degree in international studies, the
first fully accredited joint degree of
its kind between the United States and the People's
Republic of China. Students take 14
courses and write a thesis during the two-year program. A
minimum of 10 courses, plus the
thesis and an oral defense, must be conducted in the
student's target language. For Chinese
students, the target language is English; for American and
other international students, the
target language is Mandarin Chinese.
Mohrman said that the center has thrived despite some
challenges, such as periods of
financial insecurity, the NATO bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in
1999 and the outbreak of SARS in 2003, which forced the
center to move its faculty and
student population to the East-West Center in Honolulu for
four months.
A key to the center's success, she said, has been the
pairing up of Chinese and American
students, who live side by side in dorm rooms on the
campus.
Meghan Houlihan, a recent graduate of the center who
now works in the center's
Washington, D.C., office as alumni and program coordinator,
said that while she certainly
learned a tremendous amount in the classroom, the time
spent with her roommate was
immeasurably productive and rewarding.
"When you're living with someone, you get to know what
he or she is thinking and also
how he or she thinks," she said. "I remember vividly having
a conversation with my roommate
one night while I was working on a paper. We stayed up
until 1 in the morning talking about
politics and our two countries. It was a really interesting
talk about politics, marriage and
many other subjects. We talked for hours using both
languages, going back and forth from
English to Chinese. I learned so much that night, it didn't
even bother me I didn't get to finish
that paper."
Muller said that discussions and relationships like
this one can prove fruitful in the
coming decades.
"It's important for the next generation of Chinese and
American leaders to talk to each
other and build understanding, and I think the
Hopkins-Nanjing Center has contributed to this
and will continue to do so," he said.
Other celebration activities on Friday, June 22, and
Saturday, June 23, include the
graduation ceremony of the class of 2007; student-led tours
and the dedication of the new
Samuel Pollard Building; alumni dinners; a concert; panel
discussions with center alumni and
experts on U.S.-China relations; and a formal dinner and
gala ball.
For more information, go to
www.sais-jhu.edu/Nanjing/center/anniversary.shtml.
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