Preparing students for leadership on the frontiers of a changing world: UAA develops educational and research collaborations in China.

• Author: Case, Tom
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: International Trade

As the preeminent center for business education and policy research in Alaska, the College of Business and Public Policy (CBPP) at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) focuses on preparing students for leadership at the frontiers of a changing world. Building partnerships with peer institutions across the Pacific and Arctic regions will benefit UAA and Alaska by increasing the flow of knowledge and innovation with our main trading partners. A deepening partnership between UAA and China's famed Nankai University, focusing on collaborations in research and education, is a major step forward in the university's internationalization strategy.

This past June, a UAA delegation composed of administrators and faculty was invited to visit Nankai University in China to sign two agreements for collaboration in the areas of business education and Experimental Economics research. Agreement on a joint MBA program was signed by UAA Chancellor Tom Case and Nankai President Ke Gong. In the Nankai-UAA joint MBA program, enrolled Chinese students will complete a year of study in the Institute of State Economy at Nankai University in China and then another 1 to 1.5 years at UAA. The program will kick this fall with the expected arrival of the first cohort of students from China.

In recent years UAA has created an area of distinction in Experimental Economics, ranking among the top 10 percent in this field worldwide. The CBPP Experimental Economics Lab so impressed a delegation of visitors from Nankai University in 2013 that they sought our assistance in the development of their own lab. Rashmi Prasad, Dean of CBPP at UAA, Bin Xia, Dean of Institute of State Economy, and Qi Liang, Dean of the School of Economics at Nankai University, signed a joint venture initiative to build an experimental economics laboratory in Nankai named after Vernon L. Smith, the 2002 Noble Laureate and also the first CBPP Rasmuson Chair in Economics. The CBPP Experimental Economics Laboratory was created under the guidance of Professor Smith. CBPP Professor James Murphy was appointed to a visiting professorship at Nankai University and as director of the new laboratory as part of the agreement.

Our conversations with Nankai regarding collaboration...