McMaster’s ability to provide students with Chinese language and culture courses took a significant blow last summer.
Following the university’s decision to separate from the Confucius Institute last February, the Faculty of Humanities is attempting to provide students with at least a modicum of its former offerings, having relied on this foreign partnership since 2008 to provide students with a variety of courses for those who wanted to learn about China or learn its language.
The acting Dean of Humanities, Ken Cruikshank, defends the school’s decision to separate.
“Disconnecting ourselves from the Confucius Institute was an important step we had to take – the university as a whole had to take – in order to address a human rights complaint,” said Cruikshank.
A glance at the Undergraduate course timetable yields a slew of “Not Offered” statuses, bringing last year’s total of 11 courses down to a single offering, an introductory Mandarin class.
“The number of Chinese courses that are being offered this year are obviously less than last year, but actually the number of students affected by that is not that high. Last year there were 49 students taking introductory Chinese; this current year there are 44 students [in the course.]”
The Faculty of Humanities is now responsible for offering and maintaining the course, which does not come without a cost.
“My ability to offer the course is, obviously I have to find the money myself now. The Confucius Institute provided a way of offering these courses; someone else was helping to pay for them,” said Cruikshank.
In light of the faculty offering a beginner’s language course this year, there is no assurance that this program will be offered in future years. “We will try as best we can to continue to mount the course but I can’t guarantee every year. But there is certainly a continued commitment and it will continue to be a course we offer.”
“We are currently not exploring international partnerships such as we had through the Confucius Institute. I think that way there is a lesson to be learned from the work that we did,” said Cruikshank. “It seemed initially to be a very promising avenue and certainly a number of universities continue to have Confucius Institutes but we suspect they are going to have the same problems.”
McMaster University will not renew its agreement to host a Confucius Institute when its current contract expires on July 31.
A statement released by the University suggests it wants to distance itself from hiring practices by its partners at the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU):
“Concerns were raised that the hiring decisions in China did not reflect the normal hiring practices of the University. Numerous discussions were held with BLCU officials to consider possible solutions but a satisfactory resolution could not be found.”
The hiring discrepancy is related to a human rights complaint filed in 2012 by a former professor teaching in McMaster’s Confucius Institute.
Sonia Zhao, a professor dispatched to McMaster by the BLCU, quit her job and applied for refugee status in Canada. Zhao claims she was discriminated against because her contract stipulated she was not allowed to practice Falun Gong, a belief and practice that is illegal in China.
Zhao filed a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in May 2012. Her legal counsel will meet with McMaster lawyers on Thursday as part of the mediation stage.
In the complaint, she said that McMaster University bears some responsibility because it “was giving legitimization to discrimination” by allowing the employment contract to be used.
Joel Chipkar, a spokesperson for the Falun Gong Association of Canada, said a letter was sent on behalf of the Association to the University in October 2011. The letter, obtained by The Silhouette, asks the University to intervene by "demanding" that the Institute "retract its discriminatory policy against Falun Gong."
The Association has been following Zhao's case and is working with Zhao's legal counsel.
Chipkar said the Association is “encouraged that McMaster has taken a stand against human rights violations in Canada."
“It is still just a statement,” said Chipkar. “We still have a lot to discuss.”
Confucius Institutes have a presence around the world as a means of promoting learning about Chinese language and culture. The headquarters for the institutes is Hanban, part of the Chinese Ministry of Education. In Canada, there are nine Confucius Institutes.
McMaster's Confucius Institute offers language courses in Mandarin and two "Introduction to Chinese Civilization and Culture" courses.
The director of McMaster's Institute has declined comment on the situation.
According to its statement, the University is “looking at options to gauge ongoing community interest in Chinese language courses at the postsecondary level.”
Something was unmistakably amiss on Oct. 1 when walking through the outdoor Mills Plaza. The Chinese Cultural Festival, hosted by McMaster’s Confucius Institute, was in full swing, full in this case meaning a single, subtle tent and a modest display of staff.
Compared to last year, when the festival encompassed the entire MUSC Atrium in an ostentatious display of cultural pride, song, dance and prizes, it was an unfamiliar offering from the usually grandiose faculty.
Dr. Angela Sheng, Associate Professor of Art History and Director Chair of the Confucius Institute, explained the reasoning behind this massive shift in festivities. “I want [the festival] to be in the open, to attract student attention and I would like it to be driven by grassroots needs,” said Sheng.
The festival, scheduled to run from Oct. 1 to 3, encompassed many aspects, such as martial arts demonstrations, student presentations and a myriad of film screenings on Thursday, still seemed oddly cut down, sporting an almost subtle profile with few students stopping their daily activities to check out the event.
The Institute, recently scrutinized for its allegedly controversial hiring and training practices overseas for prospective teachers according to a Globe and Mail investigative report, seems to be in the process of restructuring its outward appearance to appeal to a larger student body.
“The Confucius Institute is synchronous with humanities and with President Deane’s Forward With Integrity message, and we want to highlight student endeavours and give them a platform to express their work,” said Sheng.
The festival itself, while smaller in scale, promoted a single, unified message. It highlighted spirituality as a means to promote overall well-being, as well as stressing the importance of values shared between heritage students and students without a Chinese background at McMaster.
Looking forward in the year, Sheng has further plans to engage the student body in Chinese culture. “We have the upcoming Distinguished Speaker Series to look forward to. On October 30 an archeologist is going to speak about the first emperor of China. Later in November a linguist will come and speak about the phonetic system [of Mandarin].”
The Institute’s current plans do not end at festivities alone, as it is currently engaged in a proposal to found a new Chinese business course.
“It would be a language course that focuses on business language, and business etiquette and know-how that is different in China,” said Sheng.
The proposal has been submitted to the Curriculum Committee of the Faculty of Humanities and if passed will move on to review by the Senate’s Undergraduate Planning Committee this fall.
“I’d like to know what students would like [to know about China]. These projects have to be initiated by students and then they can be incorporated into next year’s budget proposal,” said Sheng on how students could get involved in the faculty.
The Confucius Institute will continue to run events throughout the year, but it remains to be seen if future showings by the organization will be equally toned down.
