Sat 28 Jun 2008

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6 Responses to “An Asian Partner?”

1. David says:

   That link no longer works for me but this one does. Here are the key quotes:

   THE National University of Singapore (NUS) has begun talks with top liberal arts colleges in the United States and expects to identify a suitable partner by next year.

   NUS, which has been chosen to explore the possibility of setting up a new liberal arts college with an annual intake of up to 250 students, announced this on Friday at the close of a three-day meeting by the International Academic Advisory Panel (IAAP).

   The US colleges which NUS officials have visited or contacted include Williams College, which is ranked No.1, Pomona, Mckenna and Harvey Mudd Colleges which are under the Claremont Group, and the Swarthmore College under the Tri-College Consortium.

   NUS senior deputy president Tan Chorh Chuan said these colleges have also indicated interest in furthering talks with NUS, to discuss what model the liberal arts college here might adopt.

   Highlighting previous collaborations in NUS, he said the partnership could be modelled after its music conservatory, which had the help of the Peobody Institute in its set up, but now gives out NUS degrees, or could take the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School’s model which gives out degrees from both universities.

   The IAAP, a high-level panel of top academics and industry leaders from around the world, said in its recommendations that establishing a liberal arts college is of ‘strategic importance’ to Singapore.

   It met this week to discuss recommendations made by a committee looking into the expansion of the university sector.

   Panel chairman Tony Tan said that the panel recognised the challenges in setting up a liberal arts college, for instance, funding and partnership.

   Hmmm. I can’t imagine that Williams would provide meaningful “funding” for such a project and I doubt that we would ever increase the class size by 250. But I certainly could imagine an extensive “partnership” with NUS, at least at the level of Williams-in-Oxford and perhaps featuring a big increase in the number of Singaporean students at Williams.

   Questions:

   1) How many Singaporean students are at Williams now?

   2) Does anyone have any sources at some of the other named schools?

   3) NUS seems to be both a potential partner and a potential competitor. Despite being located in Asia, it seems that English is the official language of the university. True? Can anyone tell us more about NUS?

   If you want Williams to be the best College in the world, then you need to have the best (English-speaking) students. Many (50? 100?) of those students will come from Asia. Don’t want them? Then you are in, more or less, the same position as the administrators who did not want (too many) Jews in elite schools 75 years ago.

   Starting up a partnership with NUS (and other elite schools) seems like a great idea. I wish Morty and his “entourage” all the best.

   June 28th, 2008 at 5:33 pm



2. concerned says:

   I don’t believe that they are going to Singapore on this trip, so I doubt there are plans to set up a partnership with NUS.

   June 28th, 2008 at 6:40 pm



3. Glenn '11 in Singapore says:

   1) There’s only me, and a few other students who have studied in Singapore at some time.

   2) No.

   3) Yes, English is the official working language, but a local pidgin is commonly used in informal situations. NUS is a large research university, and already has both a Faculty of Social Sciences and a Faculty of Science. I am very interested to see how a liberal arts college can exist under the umbrella of a research university, without turning into a CAS.

   A few years ago, local authorities teamed up with Wharton to set up the Singapore Management University. This is something that SMU is very proud of, but there’re but a few mentions of it on the Wharton site. My guess is that this ‘partnership’ will be one in a similar vein, meaning it will be unlike the Williams-Oxford program. Williams will provide expertise and experience to set up the new LAC, since there really aren’t that many Singaporeans who’ve attended LACs, after which the new college will be locally-run.

   June 29th, 2008 at 2:25 am



4. lgeorge says:

   concerned –

   Do you have details on this trip? Do you know who’s involved? Where they’ve gone and why? Your comment implicitly confirms that there is a group trip underway, but we are in the dark about the details (which is why the article about NUS made me wonder…).

   Does anyone know whether Williams officials and staff routinely go on this sort of trip?

   June 29th, 2008 at 3:06 am



5. FROSH/SOPH MOM says:

   Here’s my theory, FWIW.
   Possibly this trip is connected to the revamping of the Admissions process.

   If, let’s say, many of the desirable Asian International students, are putting Williams on their application lists, but then opting for the schools with higher ‘name recognition’ (frustratingly, even after being accepted by Williams), then not only does that warrant the new look at the Application process, it might also justify a trip to Asia to ‘make connections’ and raise the Williams profile.

   Given the expected drop-off in the U.S student demographic, this could be (just part of) ‘planning ahead’.

   June 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm



6. hwc says:

   Here is an earlier article from last November:

   The Straits Times (Singapore)
   Work-relevant training an idea for 4th varsity; Study team notes practices at foreign colleges and poly students’ concerns

   November 6, 2007 Tuesday
   BYLINE: Sandra Davie, Education Correspondent
   TWO American universities caught the eye of the Singapore team that is casting for the shape that the country’s fourth publicly funded university should take.

   One was the Boston-based Northeastern University, which requires its students to undergo up to three six-month internships during their undergraduate years.

   The other was Babson College, ranked No.1 in the United States for its entrepreneurship programme, in which all its undergraduates start and run a company while in university.

   Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew, who led the 13-member team on two study trips to the US and Europe, said the jury was still out on the form this university should take. The trips were to seek ideas on how a fourth university – different from the rest – could expand the university sector here to offer places to 30 per cent of each cohort by 2015.

   But following a discussion with polytechnic students yesterday, he listed the interesting features of the institutions the panel visited.

   The team went to several American liberal arts colleges, including Amherst, Swarthmore and Harvey Mudd and spoke to the Singapore students studying there.

   It came away impressed with the broad-based education in these colleges, which require students to cover the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. Their students are drawn into thinking critically and synthesising knowledge and are exposed to different modes of thought.

   Sounds like the Singapore education folks are looking at a 4th university, modeled after the work-study/internship approach at Northeastern AND a small liberal arts college.

   Mostly, it just sounds like Minister of Education likes to take nice junkets to US, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

   June 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

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