February 14, 2005

CONTACT: Anne Brooks Ranallo, (312) 355-2523, aranallo@uic.edu

UIC, Tongji University Deans Sign Exchange Agreement

Urban planning deans at the University of Illinois at Chicago and
Tongji University in Shanghai, China, have entered into a faculty
exchange agreement designed to expand UIC's international comparative
research.

Under the five-year program, UIC and Tongji will exchange urban
planning and public administration faculty. The program will begin this
fall, pending approval by both universities' governing boards.

Mayor Richard M. Daley called exchanges like this an important part of
Chicago's effort to increase its prominence as a center of
international commerce and culture.

"Exchanges like this are an important part of Chicago's effort to
increase its prominence as a center of international commerce and
culture," Daley said. "Foreign students and faculty invariably return
to their native countries with favorable impressions of Chicago and its
universities, and that works to the long-range benefit of our city."

The UIC commitment to China corresponds to Daley's Sister Cities
agreements with Shanghai and Shenyang.

Robin Hambleton, dean of the UIC College of Urban Planning and Public
Affairs, said Chinese society's "seismic shift" has implications around
the world because of that nation's economy's sheer size and startling
pace of change, particularly in cities.

"Chinese families now seek Western-style consumer goods. Car sales have
risen 50 percent in the past two years, with predictable consequences
in traffic and pollution. Entrepreneurs have unprecedented
opportunities, but the polarization between the rich and the poor is
growing," he said.

"Our 2004 'City Futures' conference, which drew more than 200 leading
urban scholars and officials from 36 countries, established that
there's a gap in urban scholarship between the developed and the less
developed worlds," Hambleton added. "This exchange is a step toward
closing that gap. We can learn so much from each other."

Tongji University offers access to senior figures in international,
national, regional and local institutions in Shanghai, Hambleton said.

Faculty from UIC and Tongji will teach individually at first, then
collaborate with the host faculty on teaching and research into
sustainable development, land use control, smart growth, city
management and public financing. The agreement may be renewed after
five years.

The UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs is already
actively involved with universities in Europe and South America. Its
urban planning program, the world's largest, has offered courses on
international development since the late 1980s.

Faculty come from Australia, China, Colombia, India, Italy, Japan,
Nepal, Syria, the UK and the United States. Most faculty participate
regularly in international meetings and correspondence in their
specializations.

Tongji University's College of Architecture and Urban Planning has
organized its own international conferences, including the first World
Planning School Congress in 2001, attended by 800 planning educators
from 68 nations.

For information about UIC's urban planning and public administration
programs, visit www.uic.edu/cuppa/

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