China, UNA reach deal

University of North Alabama - Officials with the University of North Alabama signed a partnership agreement Tuesday with the American Education Institute that will allow for more Chinese students to enroll, study and graduate from UNA.

It's an agreement that UNA President Bill Cale said puts the university on a frontier as yet unmatched by other schools in Alabama or even those across the United States.

"An open relationship with China now - at this moment - is exactly the right thing to do for international relations because China is clearly becoming a world power economically," he said. "And it's clear that China is reaching out to the rest of the world."

The partnership, which also includes the Anhui Vocational and Technical College of China, was developed in May after a visit to China by Jacque Behrens, the director of international recruiting at UNA.

"Most students in China, when they thought about studying abroad, they thought about going to Australia or New Zealand," she said. "We possess many of those same programs as well, and we offer them an equally good opportunity at success."

It has only been within the past two years that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rules and regulations regarding the issuance of student visas to certain countries, including China, have eased, making the exchange that much easier. Much of the delays for Chinese students had to do with the communist nature of the country's politics as well as its human rights record.

Leon Katz, spokesman for the American Education Institute, said the partnership with UNA is significant because the students who arrive in the Shoals will be "culled from all of the provinces in China and will be the best of the best that the country has available."

The institute will work with the provincial governments in China to find students eligible to enroll.

Already, UNA is home to a large international student population thanks to the program that was developed in the early 1990s. Students come from Japan, Turkey and the Middle East to study at UNA. Katz said he spoke with some of those students about why UNA was their choice.

Campus size as well as friendly people were among the reasons, but, Katz said, having a degree from an American university is like "living out a dream. It means greater opportunities when they go back home, and they become more of an asset to any company they want to work for."

Students from China are expected to arrive on campus in January for the spring semester, and university officials say the colleges of business, nursing as well as arts and sciences are expected to be the most popular as they seek their degree programs.

The exact number of Chinese students UNA's infrastructure can handle, however, especially in light of record freshman enrollment this fall, is still a guess. But Evan Ward, interim director for the Center for International Programs, said were that number to be reached, other universities in the state would take on the additional students.

"We're talking about a quality of student - not quotas and numbers," Ward said. "We'll be working within the constraints of the university to integrate the students into the campus fabric."

The partnership is expected to last as long as those involved wish to sustain it, but, seeing the exchange become a two-way street would be a possibility as the program evolves, officials said.

"A flow back to China of UNA students as well as our faculty is possible," Ward said. "The quality of the student we'll be getting, however, dovetails perfectly into what (Cale) wants to do with the program."

Michelle Rupe Eubanks can be reached at 740-5745 or michelle.eubanks@TimesDaily.com.