Group IX – International Seminar to China

The Different Faces of China

“The Different Faces of China,” Group IX’s international seminar, took place April 3-18, 2002. Participants, as well as 15 alumni and board members, landed in Seoul, Korea on April 5, flew to Beijing, rode a train to Shanghai, flew to Xian, and finally landed in Hong Kong in what turned out to be an educational experience of a life time. Ayse Somersan, Seminar Chair, and former Dean of UW-Cooperative Extension, challenged the group to meet the following seminar objectives:

• To gain new perspectives on major issues facing societies and to better understand economic, political, cultural, and social structures within a local, state, regional, national, and global context.
• To better understand alternative or contrasting economic, political, cultural, and social systems and their impact on such things as education, economic development, health care, natural resource management and leadership development within a local, state, regional, national, and global context.
• To meet and to know people from other countries and regions so that our leaders can better understand similarities and differences between people of different cultures and systems.
• To gain a better appreciation of the difficulties and possibilities of solving societal problems in different resource situations and within the context of different economic, political, cultural and social systems.