New McDonnell International Scholars Academy announced
Last Wednesday, John Danforth, former ambassador to the United Nations, Chancellor Mark Wrighton and other Washington Univeristy officials announced the creation of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy, an initiative to foster global education and to strengthen ties with top foreign universities and leading multinational corporations.
“We founded McDonnell International Scholars Academy to broaden international cooperation and understanding among people,” said Chancellor Wrighton.
The academy focuses on educating talented international scholars from the partner universities around the world for future leadership in government, business and other professional fields. The academy is the first of its kind in the United States to create such a tie with foreign universities. Currently, partner universities are mostly in Asia.
With the Academy’s headquarters in St. Louis, scholars will come to Washington University to pursue graduate or professional degrees, meanwhile acting as liasons to their alma mater. They will be selected for their potential to become the future leaders in academia, government, or the professional or corporate worlds. Scholars are provided with a full tuition, a stipend for living expenses, support for travel to St. Louis, and a travel grant for an annual one-week trip to return to the scholar’s university partner.
Scholars must be accepted to a graduate or professional degree program at the University. Upon receiving applications, the McDonnell Academy steering committee, headed by James Wertsch, the Marshall S. Snow Professor in Arts & Sciences, will select a few scholars based on their academic records and the applicants’ desire and commitment to learn more about international issues and global leadership. The first set of more than 20 academy scholars will begin the program in the fall of 2006.
The McDonnell Academy reaffirms existing ties made in Asia, such as the International Advisory Council for Asia, which consists of more than 40 members from Asia and the United States. According to Wrighton, the idea to create the Academy came about during one of IACA conference held in Seoul, Korea in late spring 2004. Wrighton also added that 15 partner universities in Asia are only the beginning, as the committee hopes to expand the program to other parts of the world in the future.
“Asia is important for a number of reasons. First of all, two thirds of our international students from our university come from Asia, and secondly, as a region of the world, Asia is on the move in terms of economic, educational and geopolitical importance,” said Wrighton.
Once selected to be part of the program, scholars will each be provided with a faculty member from the Washington University, who will serve as the scholar’s mentor and ambassador to the scholar’s alma mater and country. Mentors will assist scholars’ academic progress at the University and serve as representatives of the United States to the scholars’ schools. They will be responsible for strengthening and fostering ties with the students’ universities and countries. In addition, they will join the scholars on the one-week annual trip to each student’s home country.
“I am very excited because we will have the framework that can strengthen our ties with the international world. This will be an expensive, prudent opportunity. But we as a University need to learn more about the rest of the world,” said Wrighton. “The academy will provide the infrastructure for collaborative global research and education.”
The Academy recently received a generous sum of endowment commitment from John F. McDonnell and the JSM Charitable Trust. In addition, nine multinational corporations, several foundations and individual donors also have committed support to the program’s goal in strengthening the worldwide network of researchers, scholars and institutions. Presently, there are 15 other universities in Asia partnered to strengthen ties between Asia and the United States.
Partner universities from which McDonnell Academy scholars are invited to apply include Peking University in Beijing, the University of Tokyo, Fudan University in Shanghai, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Yonsei University in Seoul, the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, China Agricultural University in Beijing, the National University of Singapore, the University of Indonesia, Seoul National University, the University of Hong Kong, Korea University in Seoul, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the National Taiwan University in Taipei.