Corporate-university collaboration gives textbooks to China

Corporate-university collaboration gives textbooks to China

ANN ARBOR—A void of English-language college-level science textbooks in China will be partially filled soon through the efforts of a University of Michigan chemistry professor.

In March of this year, several faculty teams from U-M departments visited China to interview top applicants to graduate programs. The group from the chemistry department, led by Brian Coppola, associate professor of chemistry, spoke with one student who, while talking about his undergraduate science education, observed that a critical problem is the lack of science textbooks in English. They simply are unavailable in China.

When Coppola returned to Ann Arbor he got in touch with his contacts in textbook publishing and found that W.H. Freeman had a large stock of unused, one-edition-old texts that were perfectly good, but bound for the shredder and landfill. Freeman agreed to donate a total of 2,500 books.

John Godfrey, assistant dean for international education, Rackham School of Graduate Studies, picks up the story: “We made contact with four of the top Chinese universities and passed along a list of available titles, and they made their selections. I subsequently learned from another source that the Chinese Ministry of Education has placed a very high priority on getting English language textbooks.”

“All of our contacts in China—from the Education Ministry to the administrations of the five universities to the department heads—have been very enthusiastic and supportive of this project,” declared Coppola.

The textbooks arrived in Ann Arbor last month and are in storage at a location on North Campus. According to Godfrey, Northwest Airlines has agreed to ship the books to China at no charge. “We are now working through the red tape of customs and sometime in the next month we expect to organize a group to box the books for shipment. Each volume will have a bookplate acknowledging the U-M, Freeman, and Northwest. It’s a wonderful corporate-university collaboration,” Godfrey said.

YuChun Mao, the student who planted the seed with Coppola, began his U-M studies last week. According to Godfrey, he is one of the many students from China who faced a struggle in getting a visa to study in the United States. “Of the 169 students who accepted admissions offers to Rackham Graduate School programs, I know of about 50 who were denied visas after the first interview. Most eventually were granted visas after the second or third interview, but this required a huge expenditure of effort by department chairs, faculty, staff and Rackham administrators. We generated a large letter campaign and received a strong assist from the University’s Washington office,” Godfrey said.

EDITORS: For interviews relating to the science textbooks, contact Brian Coppola, (734) 764-7329 or by e-mail at bcoppola@umich.edu.For interviews relating to the visa issue, contact John Godfrey, at (734) 615-8482 or (734) 647-7548 or by e-mail at jgodfrey@umich.edu.

chemistryBrian CoppolaW.H. FreemanJohn GodfreyNorthwest Airlinesbcoppola@umich.edujgodfrey@umich.edu