Sweet Briar College Magazine - Spring 2016

Above: President Stone talked to
students at Beijing Xicheng Foreign
Languages School about the value of
a liberal arts education.
Right: A delegation from Sweet Briar
College, including President Phillip C.
Stone (fifth from left), vice president
for administration and general
counsel Nancyellen Keane (third
from right) and dean of student life
and academic support Kelly Kraft-
Meyer (second from right), met with
officials in China in February.
China Visit
Launches
Women’s
Leadership
Program
SWEET BRIAR IS PARTNERING WITH THE
National Center for Sustainable Development, a
Beijing- and Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, to
create the Women’s Leadership Program. The new
program will recruit highly qualified women from
China to Sweet Briar to study liberal arts and STEM
fields as part of a collaborative program to prepare
Chinese women for leadership roles in government,
business, industry and education.
President Phil Stone announced the program after a
recent trip to China, where Sweet Briar and NCSD
prepared to sign a memorandum of understanding
with the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Dongfang
International Center for Education Exchange.
“While in China, I was thrilled to learn of the
enormous interest in women’s college education,
even though higher education dedicated solely
to women is rare,” Stone said. “And there is
recognition that while engineering, technology and
science education is important, immersion in the
humanities prepares young women for deeper,
broader leadership. This will be especially important
as tomorrow’s leaders navigate China’s relationship
with the United States.”
In June 2015, at the seventh U.S.-China Women’s
Leadership Exchange and Dialogue, Chinese Vice
Premier Liu Yandong called on China and the U.S. to
explore new possibilities for educational exchange
with a focus on women.
“I believe that if we can release the full potential of
‘she power’ in China and the U.S., it will provide new
impetus to … building a new type of major country
relations,” she said at the event.
Sweet Briar’s partner, NCSD, works to support U.S.
technological demonstration projects in education,
energy and the environment. With its focus on
sustainable development, the organization will
work in China to raise awareness of Sweet Briar’s
environmental science and environmental studies
programs.
“Tomorrow’s Chinese leaders will need to make
tough choices about how to balance the need of
China’s vast population for economic growth and
consumption of energy with global development
that will affect everyone on the planet,” said NCSD
President Mitchell F. Stanley.
“At every level of government and in business,
women will play a greater role in that decisionmaking.
Sweet Briar, where learning takes place on
one of America’s most beautiful campuses with acres
of open space, is an ideal place for international
students to prepare for environmental and global
leadership.”
The Women’s Leadership Program will feature two
summer sessions for Chinese students at a partner
university in Washington, D.C., where women will
explore U.S. government institutions, governmental
history and political decision-making processes —
leadership elements that Sweet Briar and NCSD
believe are critical to the success of a bilateral
relationship. Those sessions, in addition to a summer
internship, will result in the awarding of a leadership
certificate with the Sweet Briar diploma.
Read more here.
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