New University of Cincinnati faculty fellows appointed

Mike Neugent and Jun Wang have been appointed Faculty Fellows for China Partnerships. They will work together to identify and cultivate relationships with peer universities in the country in order to develop multidisciplinary collaborations in teaching and research and to foster student mobility.

Kate Bonansinga has been appointed Faculty Fellow for Cultural Engagement. She will work on a visual arts project in collaboration with diverse strategic partners to engage students who might not otherwise study internationally and to foster collaboration with universities where travel is limited.

Their appointments will run Oct.15, 2021-Aug. 14, 2022.

“This past year, we have been re-examining all of our initiatives and our working structure. You might call it one of the ‘surprise benefits’ of COVID that it has forced all of us to rethink how and why we do our work,” said Jenni Sutmoller, Director of International Strategic Partnerships in UC International.

The new fellowships are part of UC International's effort to engage more faculty in leading global initiatives university-wide, not just within their colleges or programs or as individual research collaborators. The fellowships are also intended to create innovative opportunities to connect with strategic partners while travel remains largely restricted.

UC’s strategic partnerships are comprehensive, sustainable relationships with universities worldwide, supporting our mutual education missions and building deep collaborative relationships between our scholars and researchers. They prepare us to meet complex world challenges and prepare our students for a global future.

Neugent is the director of the MS Finance program in the Carl H. Lindner College of Business and has traveled to China more than 20 times to recruit students and to develop partnership programs with universities there.

Wang is an assistant professor in Environmental & Public Health Sciences who joined the College of Medicine in 2020. He comes from China and has used his connections and cultural knowledge to help his former U.S. university develop student and scholar eschanges in East Asia; he has also taught, lectured and done collaborative research in the region.

"We decided to go with two China fellows because each brings unique experience and talents that complement the other's," said Sutmoller. "Jun is originally from China and has led delegations to China that resulted in new partnerships at his previous institution. He maintains several research relationships with colleagues in China. Also, Jun is a faculty member on the medical campus, whereas Mike is a faculty member in LCB on the west campus. Mike has extensive experience over the last 10 years traveling to China on behalf of the Finance Department and successfully developing joint programs with China."

The two plan to use their knowledge of the Chinese university system to identify peer universities with partnership interests aligning with UC's. Just as important, they intend to seek out what Wang calls the "hidden treasures" of existing connections that UC faculty and programs have through alumni, teaching relationships, research collaborations or personal ties to universities of interest.

"China is a very relational culture," Neugent said. "It's really about where those embedded relationships lie, whether officially or unofficially."

"I think it's very important to have this kind of scholarly, academic relationship with China, especially in the current environment," Wang said, citing political and policy factors, the trade war and COVID travel restrictions as part of that unstable environment. He and Neugent look forward to the reopening of travel to move conversations forward. They believe that collaboration and mobility between Chinese and American universities go hand in hand with normalized relations between the world’s two largest economies.

A proposed separate fellowship for virtual initiatives has for the moment been subsumed into these three appointments, since all activities between UC and the strategic partners remain virtual at this time.

As travel policies change and as response to some ongoing projects funded through virtual incentive grants to faculty and staff is assessed, the additional appointment may be reconsidered for next year.