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Managing GodOs Higher Learning offers a distinct empirical study of Lingnan University and addresses issues of adaptation and integration. Author, Dong Wang, demonstrates that many aspects of Lingnan _ governance, links with the local society, financial management, education for women _ have either never been made the subject of scholarly discussion or are different from what we think we know about U.S.-China relations in the past. As the first co-educational institution of higher learning in China, Lingnan made monumental strides in the management of programs for women, a fact which confounds the assumptions made by China historians. The author argues that LingnanOs growth, resilience and success can partly be accounted for by entrepreneurial operations. Wang also contends that Lingnan found ways to adapt and 'layer' a Christian presence at a time when the nationalization and secularization of higher education was making rapid headway. Based on information from archives located across the Pacific, this book will appeal to scholars of Chinese history as well as those interested in Sino-American relations.
Managing GodOs Higher Learning offers a distinct empirical study of Lingnan University and addresses issues of adaptation and integration. Author, Dong Wang, demonstrates that many aspects of Lingnan _ governance, links with the local society, financial management, education for women _ have either never been made the subject of scholarly discussion or are different from what we think we know about U.S.-China relations in the past. As the first co-educational institution of higher learning in China, Lingnan made monumental strides in the management of programs for women, a fact which confounds the assumptions made by China historians. The author argues that LingnanOs growth, resilience and success can partly be accounted for by entrepreneurial operations. Wang also contends that Lingnan found ways to adapt and 'layer' a Christian presence at a time when the nationalization and secularization of higher education was making rapid headway. Based on information from archives located across the Pacific, this book will appeal to scholars of Chinese history as well as those interested in Sino-American relations.
Chapter 1 The Setting: Honglok, Guangzhou, and Canton Christian College (Lingnan University) Chapter 2 Cultural Migration: Lingnan as a Foreign and Local Institution Chapter 3 Financing God's Higher Education: Management and Governance Chapter 4 The Advance to Higher Education: Women's Education, Power and Modernization Chapter 5 From Lingnan to Pomona: Charles K. Edmunds and His Chinese-American Career Chapter 6 Conclusion: Memories and Legacies of Lingnan
Dong Wang is chair professor of contemporary Chinese history and director of the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku in Finland.She is the author of ChinaOs Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History (Lexington Books, 2005), among other publications. Her two ongoing book projects examine the history of United States-China relations and the social transformation of Luoyang, China from antiquity to the present, respectively.
Professor Wang’s rich study is not an institutional history of the
old style but a theoretically informed reassessment. Canton
Christian College, originally an example of that uniquely American
institution, the liberal arts college, in a generation became
Lingnan University, a multifaceted research institution embedded in
the emerging Chinese nation. Wang concludes that this was not
'cultural imperialism' but a multi-cultural and Trans-Pacific
enterprise which sets an example for NGOs in China today.
*Charles W. Hayford, visiting scholar, Department of History,
Northwestern University; editor, Journal of American-East Asian
Relations*
Whereas previous studies of Christian colleges in China have
stressed the confrontational aspects of this Sino-foreign
encounter, Professor Dong Wang's monograph highlights transnational
collaboration and mutual cultural understanding at Canton Christian
College (later called Lingnan University). The author demonstrates
effectively that Lingnan, with its distinctive interdenominational
Christian atmosphere, encouraged Chinese involvement in shaping a
complex educational enterprise. As an important contribution to the
history of Sino-American interaction, Wang pays particular
attention to the business management of the college. In contrast to
previous research concerning Christian colleges in China, she
argues that southern Chinese entrepreneurial expertise played a
significant role in the management and governance of the college.
Moreover, this important work argues convincingly that a
substantial proportion of the funding of the institutional
structures of this joint Sino-American venture came from Chinese
donors.
*R. G. Tiedemann, Centre for the Study of Christianity in China,
King's College London*
[Wang's] work is based on extensive research in libraries and
archives on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, utilizing Chinese and
English language sources. . . . She is to be commended for this
publication, and it is to be hoped that not only will this work
receive a wide readership but the issues presented by it will also
encourage other scholars to pursue similar understudied themes.
*The China Journal*
Wang's attention to the mutual interactions between nations and
local places is to be applauded, as is her attention to the
exceptional nature of Canton Christian College among the Christian
colleges as a truly Sino-American venture in funding, staffing and
student body, from the beginning.
*Pacific Affairs*
Dong Wang takes a new look at Canton Christian College (Lingnan)
and finds that it was a Sino-American venture from its inception.
The institution was deeply rooted in the community and
simultaneously international in its outreach. As a leader in
women's higher education, Canton Christian College took pride in
graduating the first Chinese woman to receive a B.A. degree from a
coeducational college in China. A welcome addition to the
continuing story of the Chinese Christian colleges.
*Jessie G. Lutz, emeritus professor of history, Rutgers University,
New Jersey*
Managing God's Higher Learning has filled a gap in the study of
Christian institutions of higher education in China by providing
new archival evidence and offering a different perspective. The
author's arguments regarding cultural encounters may lead to
thoughtful discussions on how a receiving culture can benefit from
this encounter.
*China Review International*
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