BYU cementing strong ties with China

With a well-received history of performances and educational programs in the People's Republic of China spawning a plea to do more, Brigham Young University is content to stay its present course.

"There's quite an appetite for more educational and cultural exchanges," said BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson. "That's a big nation, and while we're a significant university, we're still a relative small university — what we try to do, we try to do well."

That includes China tours by BYU performing-arts groups, some two-dozen since the Young Ambassadors' first foray in 1979. Others include BYU Ballroom Dance, Living Legends, Chamber Orchestra, Wind Symphony, Synthesis and Folk Dance Ensemble, the latter scheduled to visit Hong Kong and China again next spring.

It includes the China Teachers Program, a nonprofit outreach program of BYU's David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. Since its start in 1989, it has sent nearly 1,000 teachers to 40 Chinese universities, having interacted with an estimated 175,000 students there.

And it includes other ongoing China-oriented activities — Semester Abroad programs and smaller-scale student trips sponsored by university departments.

A 30,000-student private university sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU is not alone in its efforts. Sister institutions BYU-Hawaii and even BYU-Idaho to some degree have China-directed programs, Samuelson said.

BYU-Hawaii is a natural, given its extensive programs centered on Pacific cultures and its proximity to Pacific Rim nations.

BYU is not aggressive in its own development in mainland China, without a satellite campus similar to other major U.S. universities and without an endless stream of educational agreements, which Samuelson calls "more formalities than function" in the long run.

And with polite regret, BYU turns down many inquiries and proposals from universities and other educational entities to expand its involvement with programs and exchanges in China. "We can't respond to all the requests we receive," Samuelson said.

That's not to say that BYU is in a lock-down mode, limiting all interactions. In fact, BYU allows faculty members to arrange their own approved exchanges and sabbaticals to work in mainland China.

When Samuelson last year made his first return visit to China since becoming BYU president, he kept running into BYU faculty members working there in their respective fields in small-scale arrangements — someone from engineering at one Chinese university, someone else from health and human performance at another and more elsewhere.