March 2008

Welcome to e-TrueBlue: China, brought to you by the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan. Our goal is to provide you a regular communication to update you on our efforts to build a global program that benefits the University and its faculty, students and alumni.

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Michigan News

Library preserves works of composer Bright Sheng

Thanks to a special archival collection at the U-M Bentley Historical Library, the creative process of Chinese-born composer Bright Sheng is being preserved for future study. Sheng, the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Musical Composition at U-M, is a composer, conductor and pianist. Born in Shanghai in 1955, he earned top honors as a composition student at Shanghai Conservatory before moving to New York City and eventually to Ann Arbor. He considers himself "100 percent American, 100 percent Chinese."

In 1999, Sheng received a special commission from the White House to create a new work for a state dinner, hosted by US President Bill Clinton in honor of the Chinese Premiere Zhou Rongji. Sheng was named a MacArthur "Genius" Fellow in 2001, receiving a cash prize of $500,000. He served as artistic adviser for Yo-Yo Ma's "Silk Road Project" and as the New York Ballet's first composer-in-residence. Among his important teachers were Leonard Bernstein and Chou Wen-Chung.

The Bright Sheng Collection to date encompasses a wealth of manuscripts and printed scores, reviews and tributes, correspondence and curricular materials, performances and recordings, and research material gathered along the Silk Road. Bibliographic and archival descriptions on the site enable the viewer to discover all that is available.

Public health students travel to Tianjin

In the first trip of its kind, a group of 30 graduate students from the School of Public Health spent spring break in February working with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Tianjin. The students were assigned to field work in district hospitals and village clinics, participating in projects related to immunizations, maternal and child health, environmental health and outbreak investigation. U-M and the Tianjin center formally agreed to a scholar exchange program last September. In addition to the spring break trip, the SPH has had public health physician residents spend training rotations there, and three public health graduate students will complete summer internships working in Tianjin.

Students to intern at Beijing Olympics

Nine U-M students have been selected for NBC's Olympic Intern Program at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The students were selected from more than 65 U-M applicants and began preparing for the month-long trip in early March.

They enrolled in "A Link to Modern China," a one-credit mini-course that was specially designed to help prepare them culturally for their trip to Beijing. The training will be needed at the Olympics, where they will work 12 hours a day, seven days a week during the Games. The internships will run from July to August, with specific times varying by individual assignment. Their jobs will change from day to day; they will go wherever help is needed to ensure that production runs smoothly.

NBC is planning to broadcast more hours of the summer Olympics than all of the previously televised Olympic Games combined, so the interns know that they have their work cut out for them. They share a love of sports or media production and jumped at NBC's offer, despite the long hours they will face. "I knew I had to apply for this internship when I heard about it because… well, it's the Olympics and it's NBC," said intern Helen Zhang.

The Alumni Association and the University are providing funding for the students to help cover costs of the internship. The Association also will work with alumni in China to host a welcome reception upon the students' arrival in Beijing.

Alumni Association News

Stay connected with our online community

inCircle, the Alumni Association's online directory and networking community for U-M alumni and students, is growing. Use inCircle to connect with old friends, find people who share your interests, find a job or create a group for U-M alumni who live and work in your region of the world. All you need to get started are a uniqname and password. Don't have a uniqname? You can register for one online.

Update your University record

The Alumni Association is committed to keeping you informed about our efforts to build a global alumni program. We are better able to meet this goal if your contact information with the University is updated. More than 500 alumni from China and Hong Kong have already updated their records. You can update your University record online at http://alumni.umich.edu/china/AAUMChinaRec.php.

Projects and Partnerships

Center for Chinese Studies appoints interim director

Mary Gallagher, associate professor of political science, has been named interim director of the U-M's Center for Chinese Studies. Gallagher studies Chinese politics, law and society. She is the author of "Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China" (Princeton University Press, 2005) and earned her doctorate from Princeton University. She will serve until next fall when a permanent director is named.

The Center for Chinese Studies, founded at U-M in 1961 and home to more than 30 distinguished China scholars, ranks among the top three US programs for China studies.

Professor studies language learning differences

During a stint as an English teacher in rural China, Twila Tardif decided it was time that she learn Chinese. That eventually led to research on relations between language and thought. Now a U-M professor of psychology, she explores the relationships between language, culture and cognition. While English and Chinese speakers appear to behave similarly when speaking, their brain processes are very different. "When we look at their brains responding 'online,' we can see clear differences in how judgments were made," Tardif said.

Much of her research focuses on children. "I've discovered that very unlike the pattern found for children learning English and most other languages, children who learn both Mandarin and Cantonese as a native language begin by using many verbs, or action words, in their early vocabularies. In fact, for 1-year-old children who only have one to 10 words in their vocabularies, almost all Mandarin and Cantonese learning children have one or more verbs, whereas almost no English learning children do."

Her research takes her to China two or three times a year, sometimes more. Despite her frequent trips, she continues to learn more about the country. "Every generalization I've ever made has its opposite," she said. "China is a complex place, and the complexities of culture abound."

Photo contest open to campus community

The Center for Chinese Studies is proud of its annual photo competition for all U-M faculty, staff and students, which allows contestants to help show a unique aspect of China. There have been close to 50 submissions in each of its first two years.

"I wanted (contestants) to be able to share their experiences in China with each other," said Maryellen Bartolome, CCS student services coordinator and contest founder. "A byproduct of course, is that the rest of the University community can see the interesting, creative and important work that our faculty and students are engaged in .... It may also be a record of a country that is changing very quickly."

This year's theme is China: Home and Family, and contestants have until August to submit photos. While the contest is not open to alumni, the CCS would be grateful to receive your photos, which might be used in future printed publicity materials or on the CCS Web site. Send them to Summer Tucker at summert@umich.edu. Photos from the 2006 and 2007 contests are available online.

Student Spotlight

Meet Chao (Leon) Liu

What started as a fascination with science fiction—the works of Isaac Asimov in particular—led Chao (Leon) Liu on the road to his current doctoral research at U-M on cognitive and brain science. In this issue's student spotlight, Liu describes how his undergraduate studies in computer science at Wuhan Polytechnic University influenced his decision to study psychology. He also describes his research, citing examples of the differences between learning Mandarin and English, and why he chose to come to Michigan.

Club News and Events

Lloyd Carr joins U-M delegation to China

Former U-M head football coach Lloyd Carr will headline the 2008 alumni presentations and receptions in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing in May and June. Carr, who is making his first visit to China, is honored to join this year's delegation. These events, the third in an annual series building on President Mary Sue Coleman's historic 2005 China visit, are planned to bring alumni together to meet and support each other as well as the University of Michigan.

In the spirit of this Olympic year in Beijing, Carr will speak on the universality of sports and athletic competition. His 30-year career included leading thousands of high school and college athletes as well as earning a national championship for U-M, five Big Ten Championship titles and several coach of the year awards. His tenure as U-M head football coach started in 1995 and ended January 1 of this year with a win in the Capital One Bowl.

Jerry May, U-M vice president for development, will represent President Coleman and speak on her behalf about the state of the University and about philanthropy in higher education. Steve Grafton, AAUM president and chief executive officer, will emcee the events and speak on the continuing progress of alumni engagement in China.

Events are scheduled as follows:

• Thursday, May 29, 6:30 – 9 p.m.: Hong Kong Jockey Club
• Saturday, May 31, 6:30 – 9 p.m.: 1933 Creative Center, Hongkou
• Tuesday, June 3, 6:30 – 9 p.m.: Beijing American Club

Invitations will be mailed in early May to alumni for whom the University has postal addresses in China. Be sure your U-M alumni record is up-to-date by going to the AAUM Web site. Updated information also will be posted on the China Alumni Relations Web page. Readers are encouraged to pass this information along to other alumni to be sure all are aware of this exciting learning and networking event sponsored by the Office of the President and the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan.

Michigan Alumnus features China article

The Spring 2008 issue of Michigan Alumnus, the AAUM's magazine, will include a feature article about our continuing efforts to reach alumni living in China. It will also include information on a special internship that is taking select U-M students to the Beijing Olympics, and a profile of Gary Zenkel, '83, who as president of NBC Olympics is responsible for bringing the Games to viewers in the US. Links to these stories will be available soon on our China Alumni Relations Web page.

Did You Know?

Profile of fall 2007 entering freshmen

The Ann Arbor campus set a new enrollment record for fall 2007, with 41,042 students, a 2.5 percent increase over last year. The strength of the incoming freshman class, which numbers 5,992, is especially notable. Here's a quick, by-the-numbers look at the entering class:

• International students: 251
• Number of countries represented: 55
• White students: 3,741 (65.2 percent)
• Asian-American students: 757 (13.2 percent)
• African-American students: 334 (5.8 percent)
• Hispanic-American students: 267 (4.7 percent)
• Native-American students: 50 (0.9 percent)

As the Chinese Relations program continues to evolve, our goal is to update you on our efforts to build a global program that benefits the University and its faculty and students. If you would like to be on the permanent eTrueBlue: China mailing list, please send an email request to cjspiess@umich.edu.

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Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, 200 Fletcher St., Ann Arbor, MI, 734.764.0384, 800.847.4764, m.alumni@umich.edu