Archive for February/2008

IE Business School is the first business school in Spain to receive the Jean Monnet chair. The Chair forms part of the European Commission’s Jean Monnet Program, a tribute to the memory of the promoter of the European Communities and the first President of the Commission.

The Jean Monnet-IE Chair was inaugurated on January 26 in a ceremony with Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, former EU commissioner from the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences; Jose M. de Areilza Carvajal, the professor holding the Jean Monnet-IE chair and Miguel Poaires Maduro, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, who gave the opening address on “Interpreting European Law: Judicial Adjudication in a Context of Legal and Constitutional Pluralism”.

The inauguration of the chair at IE means that the Madrid-based schoolâ??s program portfolio will now include an initiative designed to foster education, research and reflection on European integration, a program currently running in almost eight hundred universities on all five continents, aimed at prestigious educational institutions, professors and researchers specialising in the field and participants in the integration process.

The Chair is held by Professor José María de Areilza Carvajal, Doctor in Law from Harvard University, Vice-Dean of IE Law School, Professor of EU Law at IE and guest professor at various foreign universities. The Jean Monnet chair will enable the teaching of the new courses on all IEâ??s programmes, enriching management studies and promoting European debate and knowledge among students, companies and citizens throughout the world. The new chair will organise seminars and conferences, as well as debates and symposiums on European affairs of interest for citizens and the European business community. The debates will also take place on the blog founded in 2005 by José M. de Areilza, BlogEuropa.eu.

The Jean Monnet project was founded in 1990 as a tribute to the promoter of the European Communities and the first president of the Commission. Its aim is to strengthen analysis and training in undergraduate and postgraduate studies through the organisation of seminars, conferences and debates on European affairs that capture the interest of European citizens and business corporations.

The IE MBA program is No. 1 in Spain and No. 8 in the world, according to the 2008 MBA program ranking published today by Financial Times.

In the different academic categories IE was ranked the top school worldwide in organizational behaviour and second in corporate social responsibility. The School was also placed among the 10 best schools in the fields of entrepreneurship, economics, international business, marketing and information technologies.

The Financial Times ranking comprises 21 categories that refer to both the institution and alumni. They include data like the international outreach of each school, the weighted salaries of alumni three years after graduation, the percentage of women faculty and students, the percentage of international professors and professors that hold a PhD, and levels of research.

For detailed information on the ranking, please visit the FT Business Education section: http://www.ft.com/businesseducation/globalmba2008.

This article “Alternative Reality” published in Jan. 31st, 2008 in Economist has indeed many insights about current China’s reality of online population.
Here are some of Chinese perspecives about the article’s comments on “Chinese way”.
1) “For them and for many users in China, the internet is not truly a worldwide web: it is only as wide as China. But China’s internet community is evidently a world unto itself. “
Well, I think the language is a big problem for most average Chinese to explore the world. Even though we start compulsory English courses in middle school (now starting from primary school, some rich kids even earlier), many of us only “use” English in exams, which restricting us the access to the international world.
Besides, many of us don’t have as much freedom to go outside China due to political/economical limitations, nor as much exposure to foreigners as westerners do. Also, the country is so big and very different from region to region, somehow, it seems no need to have more “diversity”.
But for the generation born after 1975, we are more influenced by Western culture, or say, the American culture, and eager to explore non China world. I can say 90% percent of Chinese of this generation who have university degree (or above), who work for multinationals, who grew up watching foreign cartoons… feel more emotionally connected to the western popular culture. I personally think it is because that after 10 years of Cultural Revolution ending in 1977, we lost many Chinese traditions, so the foreign culture brought by the “Reform and Opening up” starting in 1978 easily occupied our childhood life.
2) Although there are tight constraints on the provision of hard news, internet sites such as Sina and Sohu provide a steady supply of gossip, features, dabs of propaganda and slightly salacious stories and photos, and are constantly testing the boundaries of what is permissible.
Well, it has been like this throughout the Chinese history, that is, the ruling class wants to control the mass by controlling/guiding the mainstream thoughts, while the mass will ALWAYS “rebel” in private.
3) Because of the single-child policy, have no siblings and are searching for virtual friendships.
This is true. Actually many Chinese go on line only to play online multiplayer games and chat on different messengers like Tencent and MSN.
As for me, I’m also amazed at the some of self created entertainment videos on Chinese popular video site such as Youku, Tudou, 5Show.
Different from our public behaviors which are perceived as more reserved than westerners, those videos are very expressive, some crazy and even doing “stupid” things. My personal explanation is that we’ve been repressed so long time, so we use internet as a release channel. And thanks to the government that they care more about “inappropriate political thoughts” than the mass pop culture.
Just Show you examples of these two extreme popular fun groups in China.
1) Group “Back Dormitory Boys” (后舍男生), they try to reinterpret all popular songs in their own funny way without actually singing.

2) Group “Crazy Peasant Worker” (民工也疯狂), this is one of their funny series based on the popular Chinese movie “Curse of the golden flower”.