Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
The recent convergence of several economic and social changes has led to widespread transformation of China’s post-secondary education to meet changing labor market and social needs and simultaneously to develop a corps of world-class universities assumed to be needed for China’s growing importance as a major leader in world affairs. The presentation will consider some features of the transformation, including consequent tensions related to this two-fold priority.
Don Watkins (PhD, Yale University), Professor Emeritus, School of Public Affairs, City University of New York/Baruch College. Board Member and Vice President, United States-China Education Foundation (US-CEF). Active with China since 1982. Taught College graduates and directors of work units for two summers in Shanxi Province. Serves as the Senior Advisor and Treasurer of the Sino- American Conferences on Education jointly sponsored since 1985 by Shanxi and the City University of New York. US-CEF co-founded a vocational/technical school and college in Sichuan Province and with a Ford Foundation grant, implemented a four-year collaborative community College in China Project. His forty-year career as professor and administrator in higher education includes participating in a variety of international projects and programs in China, India, Israel, Italy and Puerto Rico. He has written papers and monographs on cross-cultural education, discrimination and higher education. His current one, on recent vocational/technical and community college developments in China, is co-authored with Dr. Gerard Postiglione and wang Liangjuan, both at Hong Kong University. To be published in 2007 by the American Association of Community Colleges as a Chapter in a book surveying “further education” in 20-22 countries and regions of the world.