by Dr. Drew A. Bennett, Chancellor
Missouri State University-West Plains

The following op-ed article was originally published in the West Plains Daily Quill Dec. 7, 2007.

Sitting in a Starbucks in Beijing, China, makes you appreciate the impact of globalization. As the chancellor of Missouri State University-West Plains, I recently traveled with Missouri State University system administrators to visit our branch campus in Dalian, China, also taking the student body presidents from both the Springfield and West Plains campuses on an international study trip. By the way, the Starbucks in China looked the same, smelled the same, tasted the same, and even cost about the same as the Starbucks in America. But while our students can do without a Starbucks (West Plains has several great places to get coffee), I am convinced that they will not be well-prepared for the future without an understanding of the business implications, politics and diversity of an increasingly interconnected world.

Education is more than just earning credits for a degree. It is also learning about how the world works and how each individual fits into that world. For a two-year college in the Ozarks, we are already quite “international.” We have students attending our campus from Brazil, Poland, Split Croatia, and South Korea. We've given our students the opportunity to travel to such places as Belize, Ireland, Greece and Italy, as well as China. Faculty from the West Plains campus have taught in Dalian, China, and returned to share insights with our student body back in Missouri. We also exchange students with the Dalian campus in China. Currently, we have three U.S. students from the West Plains Campus studying for one semester in Dalian, and we will have four Chinese students studying in West Plains next spring.

As I watched the Chinese students interact with Jessica Baxter, the president of our West Plains Campus Student Government Association, and Orlando Hodges, president of the Springfield Campus Student Government Association, I realized again that the educational opportunities of such exchanges flow both ways. Next spring every one of our 1,700 plus students who interact with the Chinese students on our campus will experience a similar educational benefit.

The Chinese are definitely interested in international study programs. During our stay in Beijing, I had an opportunity to visit the China Education Expo 2007, which ran for two weeks. I saw booths from over 400 different schools in Europe, Asia and the Western Hemisphere. On this particular day, I noted that the U.S. had 39 schools and educational programs represented, including Missouri State. It was a typical convention atmosphere with thousands of people reviewing educational opportunities and vying for a variety of “freebie” gifts such as tote bags and pens. Most of the people were potential students searching for opportunities to study outside of China. I even saw one of the exhibitors bringing in four Starbucks' coffees for the recruiters in his booth.

During our trip to China we saw the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Chinese acrobats and the Forbidden City that houses the Emperor's Palace. We've been exposed to pollution, “contact” shopping, packed subways, and numerous buffet meals served with a “Lazy Susan.” And, as we have been able to communicate with students and faculty back in West Plains by email from a Starbucks in Beijing (McDonalds and Wal-Mart are just down the street), we've experienced globalization first hand. If our students are going to be successful in the future, they need to be comfortable with the concept of globalization and have a better understanding of the global society. By affording students from Missouri State-West Plains opportunities to learn from different cultures we help them achieve that goal. When we say that students who attend Missouri State-West Plains will “stay close, and go far,” we mean it.