Chinese Educators to Tour Harper Campus

Top educators from China’s higher education system will visit Harper College as part of a program aimed at better understanding America’s community colleges.

The educators, presidents and vice-presidents with Chinese vocational and technical programs, will tour Harper’s campus – with specific stops in the Simulation Hospital lab, manufacturing lab and Studio V art and fashion boutique – on Tuesday, June 25 and hear from administrators and faculty about innovative campus programs and community partnerships.

Harper’s award-winning partnership with Motorola Solutions, a collaboration with local high schools that has boosted the number of students starting at Harper in college-level math, and a new Advanced Manufacturing program that puts students in paid internships with one of nearly 100 area manufacturing partners will be among the programs highlighted. The group also will visit the Palatine Opportunity Center, which offers Harper GED and ESL courses, and hear from Chinese students studying at Harper as part of the College’s growing international program.

“Our focus is on showcasing what makes the American community college system work, what makes it so robust and why it can be a global model for education,” says Alice Blayne-Allard, Associate Vice President for International Programs and Services at the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). “We’ve selected standout community colleges as host sites so that our visitors can get a good feel for the great work that’s going on nationally as more students look to community colleges as a place to begin their success story.”

The visit, the culminating piece of an annual program, is coordinated by the AACC in partnership with the China Education Association for International Exchange.

The delegates, split into three cohorts, will spend two weeks before their Harper visit at two-year colleges in Spokane, Wash., Ann Arbor, Mich. and Atlanta, Ga.