UAB Students to Study International Business in China

Nine University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) students are headed to China Friday, May 30, for a month of study and cultural enrichment in the fastest growing economy in the world.

May 28, 2008

• Students will study at Anshan Normal University

• UAB students to team with Chinese students

• Students will visit city leaders, businesses

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Nine University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) students are headed to China Friday, May 30, for a month of study and cultural enrichment in the fastest growing economy in the world.

K.C. Pang, director of China Initiatives and instructor of international business for the UAB School of Business, is leading the trip, a project he began in 2006 so that students could get valuable global experience.

The students will attend classes at Anshan Normal University (ANU) and team with Anshan students to form mock U.S. joint venture companies, representing international partnerships. The teams will write a business plan to set up a Chinese company in the United States. Pang will be teaching the course.

The recent earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan province has not affected plans for the trip, which takes the students more than 1,000 miles away from the earthquake site, Pang said.

The students also will spend time with the foreign affairs office within the mayor's office as well as with Chinese business executives in Birmingham's Sister City in Anshan in the Liaoning Province, to learn about how China conducts international business.

Although they will be based in Anshan, the group will take a few trips to other cities, including Cangzhou. While there, they will visit two universities, a high school, the mayor's office, and several businesses.

Near the end of their trip, students will have some time for sightseeing in Beijing, where they also will spend time with editors of a newspaper. Students are planning to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Students, participating in the trip are Jessica Harmon, an MBA student from Jasper; Whitney Wilson, an MBA student from Cedar Bluff; Adam Gutherie, an MBA student from El Dorado, Ark.; Franceline Louis XVI, a senior in accounting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.;  Katherine Theriot, a senior in marketing from Birmingham; William Slappey, a senior in economics from Vestavia Hills; Adam Teranchi, a senior in  management and biology from Birmingham; Kaoru Lowry, a senior in accounting from Birmingham and Japan; and Landon Neil, a senior in finance from Helena.

In addition to Pang, UAB faculty taking the trip and teaching at ANU are Bor-Yi Tsay, Ph.D., a professor in the accounting department, who will teach management accounting, and Eric Jack, Ph.D., an associate professor in the management department, who will teach operations management.

Pang is active in working to help Alabama businesses form relationships with Chinese businesses. He hopes his students can learn how to form international business partnerships. In his many years of doing business in China, he said he has noticed that many Chinese university students are familiar with U.S. cultures and language, but in contrast, not many U.S. college students know Chinese cultures and language.

Pang strongly believes in experiential education for today's international business students. "For the United States to compete effectively with China in this global economy," he said, "our young people, the future leaders of our country, should know about China."