University President Wallach Loh stands with Mme Liu, head of Beijing Normal University. This university and BNU have a Joint Center on Global Climate Change and Earth System Sciences, as well as a student exchange system.
University President Wallace Loh returned last night from a trip to Asia, where he met with heads of universities, held an alumni gathering and attended business meetings with Gov. Larry Hogan and other state officials.
The trip aimed to foster relationships between academic research and business, which aligns with the university’s M Square Research Park and innovation district plans, said Brian Ullmann, this university’s marketing and communications assistant vice president.
“So not only are we there to engage with companies to do business back here in Maryland,” Ullmann said. “But we are there to sort of learn and pull some lessons back on how we can do better here in our state.”
The Asia mission delegation also includes the governor’s wife Yumi Hogan, other state officials, local business leaders and representatives from the University System of Maryland, according to Karen Glenn Hood, media relations and public affairs deputy director for the state’s business and economic development department.
“This goal of this mission is all about taking our ‘Maryland Is Open for Business’ message to one of the fastest-growing economic regions of the world and inviting businesses from South Korea, China and Japan to explore all that Maryland has to offer,” Hogan said in a statement.
Loh’s trip to South Korea and China cost $13,885, which was funded by the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, Ullmann wrote in an email.
His trip kicked off in South Korea with visits to Hanyang University and Yonsei University, Loh said, which are both located in Seoul. This university has exchange programs with both universities, ranked eighth and fifth respectively, in South Korea, according to U.S. News and World Report.
During his meeting with educators there, Loh said a common interest was student startups, which he said gave him an opportunity to talk about this university’s Startup Shell, a student-run group and registered nonprofit organization.
“They are interested in sending their students here to go to the Startup Shell, and of course, sending Maryland students to their schools,” Loh said. “Those are two major academic-type relationships.”
This could improve the university’s global reach, as there are alumni teaching in numerous Korean universities, Loh said. The large presence of university alumni prompted Loh to attend an alumni gathering in Seoul with an attendance of about 120 people, he said.
A majority of fall 2014 foreign undergraduates at the university — 56.2 percent — and 47.1 percent of foreign graduate students came from China, and about 4 percent of foreign undergraduates and about 5 percent of foreign graduate students came from South Korea.
“It’s truly a global world now,” Loh said. “Education is global.”
While in Beijing, Loh attended an Under Armour store event emphasizing the company’s presence and expansion in Asia, according to his itinerary.
“It’s fitting that the founder of Under Armour is a graduate of the University of Maryland,” Loh said. “To have the University of Maryland represented at such an opening in one of the world’s largest and most dynamic markets, it’s huge exposure to the University of Maryland.”
Loh also attended meetings with the Beijing Normal University president and chair and the Chinese Academy of Sciences president, according to his itinerary.
The estimated cost of the trip is $140,000, with each state agency paying for their respective staff members and private business members paying their own way, Glenn Hood wrote in an email.
The diversity of the state’s delegation, which included Loh, who is Chinese-American, and the first lady, who is Korean-American, created a “very positive climate,” Loh said.
“To come to Korea with a first lady who is Korean-American, she was literally a media rock star,” Loh said. “It’s not to be underestimated the impact of this kind of a diversity in a state delegation from Maryland or from any American delegation coming to Asia.”
