The China Connection

Linn-Benton Community College’s president, Rita Cavin, is looking forward to the school’s partnerships with six technical colleges in China. She is hoping this will start happening sooner rather than later and is shooting for within the next three years.

Cavin recently gave a presentation called "The China Connection" in which she gave peers insight into the purpose of building partnerships with China's colleges and the importance of these relationships with them.

According to Cavin, students coming to LBCC would most likely be from one institution with one focused goal.

“We are in this for what will help our students, our programs, and our faculty," said Cavin. “We can be a very select, very high quality added, piece that some of their (China’s) students and some of their faculties experience.”

According to a mission statement provided by Cavin, the partnerships will increase the global awareness of LBCC employees and ensure that LBCC technical programs incorporate:

• To increase global awareness of LBCC employees and students through a program of exchanges and visits to international technical colleges and work sites;
• To ensure that our technical programs incorporate awareness of global practice, trade and career opportunities;
• To give our students an enriched career preparation through a program of visiting professors and students and through their own travel;
• To develop expertise about international business culture and practice in order to support local and regional trade expansion;
• To demonstrate respect for diverse experiences by using the expertise of our diverse community members as we develop international partnerships;
• To develop a foundation of international exchange that can be broadened to other countries and cultures beyond China; and
• To create a larger international student population and experience at LBCC for international students who enter our community outside of formal partnerships.

Even though Cavin is retiring, she is very enthusiastic about LBCC having partnerships with other colleges.

Last July, members of LBCC's administration went to six different technical colleges in China to tour them and decide if they wanted to do a partnership with them.

While in China, Memorandums of Understanding, which are broad agreements to begin exchanges, were signed with Beijing Polytechnic College, Xijing University, Qingdao Technical College, Rizhao Polytechnic College of China and Shanghai Institute of Health Sciences.

"The main thing about Qingdao, for me, is that I think we were there for about an hour and Rita and I kept saying to each other ‘this feels just like Linn-Benton.’ Even when we met with the president I kept thinking that this is just how we would do it. It just feels just like Linn-Benton, so I think that there is a strong philosophical connection,'' said Carol Schaafsma, executive vice president of Academic Affairs and Workforce Development.

"We would like to see some things happen this summer,” said Schaafsma. “We also expect to have more Chinese presidents come and visit LBCC's campus.”

These relationships developed in October 2008 when Bill Thallemer, the Vice president of Student Services and Government Relations, went to China representing our college. He visited technical colleges that are co-sponsored by the Chinese government and the American Association of Community Colleges. This gave the presidents a chance to size up the technical colleges in advance to see if they were interested in a partnership.

Then, in April 2009, presidents from a few colleges in China came to visit the LBCC campus. In addition to touring the campus, the presidents visited the elected officials in Salem, Ore., and met Mae Yin, a retired state senator. They additionally visited the city of Albany and sat in the council seats.

"They are very interested in learning about assistant learning centers, how to teach and work with committees and are also interested in the children and students,” Cavin said. Assistant learning centers allow students to get the help they need with their school work and they are very useful for those that don't have English as their first language.