Johnson School Appoints Dean After Two-Year Search

After serving as interim dean of the Johnson School of Management for almost a year, Joseph Thomas was announced as the new dean of the business school yesterday. Speaking at an annual charity auction and weekly social event in Sage Atrium, Provost Biddy Martin publicized the decision to faculty, staff and students.
“We’ve been engaged in an almost two-year long search. … [We looked for] someone who represented the best of the Johnson School and the University,” Martin said.
Martin added that the new Johnson School dean had to be both a scholar and an agent of change.
“We are excited to see where Joe takes the school,” she said.

Skorton Honors Cornell’s Pledge of Sustainability

As President David Skorton spoke in honor of the one-year anniversary of the signing of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commit­ment, groups from across the University showcased projects and plans aimed to promote a more sustainable campus.
On Feb. 22, 2007, Cornell became one of almost 80 schools to pledge that they “recognize the need to reduce the global emission of greenhouse gases by 80 percent by mid-century at the latest.”

A Country in Progress

As he showed off various places in Nanjing, an engineering professor at Southeast University repeatedly proclaimed, “China is a country in progress.”
Prof. Wuyi Zhang, who works in the Office of International Cooperation at Southeast, takes pride in how much change China has seen in the past 20 years. Nanjing has further developed its road system, built an array of new buildings and seen the opening of new universities.

Constructing Beijing

BEIJING, China — A walk down many streets in the interior of Beijing can feature as many half-built buildings as finished ones; many of the completed buildings were constructed in the past 10 or 15 years. This construction has greatly changed the city skyline, which is filled with construction cranes working on still more projects.

Facing Internal and External Pressures, China Looks to Improve Pollution Issues

On one day in late December, the view from an airplane window at the Beijing airport was clouded by air so thick with pollution it was white. Walking out of the airport was like walking into a crowd of smokers, intensified by the large numbers of people smoking cigarettes as they waited in lines for cabs and buses.
The following day, the pollution ranked 500 out of a maximum 500 on a government scale. About 10 years ago, Beijing developed the Blue Sky days program to monitor air pollution above the city. The highest rating in the Blue Sky system is 500, but the pollution level could actually be higher than the rating system goes.

A Very Brief History of China

1644-1912: Qing Dynasty

1912: End of dynastic rule, founding of the Republic of China under Sun Yat Sen.

1919: May Fourth Movement against European presence and control in certain parts of China.

1921: Founding of the Communist Party of China.

1927: Start of the Chinese Civil War between the Chinese Nationalist Party, Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

1937: Beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (World War II).

1949: Founding of the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party; KMT retreats to Taiwan with about 1.3 million people from Mainland China, rules Taiwan under the name of the Republic of China.

Navigating the Chinese Press

BEIJING, China — With China’s ever-growing role in world politics and the global economy, its decision to move away from isolationism in the late 1970s may seem like it was inevitable.
Jianyou Wu, the senior editor of the International News Department at Guangming Daily, which was founded as a newspaper for intellectuals in 1949, credits much of that decision to a front page article entitled “Practice is the Only Way to Judge the Truth” that ran in 1978.

Made in China, Sold in China

The influence of American culture in China can be found anywhere from conversations about the popular television show Prison Break to the plethora of KFCs and pizza restaurants. As many people in China have embraced a more consumer culture, American-style malls have cropped up in cities.
In Beijing and Shanghai large malls have been opened with American, European and Chinese stores. The prices are generally lower than the same item would be at the same store in the U.S., but much more expensive than goods outside the malls.

Chinese Universities — The Biggest Red

CHINA — Disliked your freshman dorm experiences? Imagine having lived your whole life as an only child only to move into a room with three other students — all of whom are also only children.
Most Chinese university students live like this for their four undergraduate years; several students at different universities also said that their dorm is assigned during this whole time.