Harvard opens major China office

The University opens a major new facility to encourage research, student involvement, and teaching across the disciplines and professions.

Harvard Center Shanghai is in the new office tower to the left (top); the 88-story Jin Mao Tower and 101-story World Financial Center rise to the right.

Harvard Center Shanghai is in the new office tower to the left (top); the 88-story Jin Mao Tower and 101-story World Financial Center rise to the right. | Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office

The University is expanding its academic engagement with the People's Republic of China, opening a large new Harvard Center Shanghai in March to support faculty scholarship, student visits (for internships, public service, research, and education), and even teaching. The facility was formally inaugurated with a day-long series of academic presentations and speeches featuring deans, faculty members, and alumni; a banquet keynoted by President Drew Faust; and other events. A report on some of the activities, "Global Reach," appears in the May-June issue of Harvard Magazine (and "Changing, Challenging China," a roundtable discussion among faculty experts and alumni active in the People's Republic, appeared in the March-April issue).

Much more detailed coverage of the major speeches, some of the panel discussions, and other events outside the Harvard center during the March program proper appears below. (You can also read coverage by the Harvard University Gazette of President Faust’s visit to alumni and officials in Japan, with a large delegation of faculty members, immediately preceding the China events.)

A generous gift to support international reporting, from a friend of Harvard Magazine who wishes to remain anonymous, enabled editor John S. Rosenberg to visit Shanghai in March to cover these events and presentations.

View the program of events from March 18, and use these links to navigate to Harvard Magazine's expanded coverage, with sources of further information about Harvard's wide range of activities in China:

The Chinese Century?  (keynote address by William C. Kirby)

Architecture and Urbanism: Shanghai and Beyond  (a panel discussion)

The Moral Limits of Markets  (a luncheon address by Michael Sandel)

Who Cares About Chinese Culture? (a panel discussion)

China's Newest Revolution: Health for All?  (a panel discussion)

Innovations Changing the World: New Technologies, Harvard, and China  (remarks by David B. Yoffie)

President Drew Faust’s address at the evening banquet

Connections to China: Caregiving, Ecological City Planning

You might also like

The Harvard graduate’s roundtable talk show touches on hot button issues from religion to sex. 

A new federal rule sparks uncertainty for graduate students.

The Harvard Kennedy School professor has led inquiries into the polarizing conflicts in the Middle East.

Most popular

After a final round of layoffs, University leaders say 165 staff jobs were eliminated across the division.

All That’s Unseen charts the Harvard graduate’s uneasy journey from Appalachia to Cambridge and back.  

Court finds the government’s arguments that the University continues to violate civil rights laws unpersuasive.

Explore More From Current Issue

Caricature of a young man in front of red doors, wearing a green striped sweater.

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

A smiling William C. Kirby in a suit with glasses stands outdoors, surrounded by greenery.

The president of Harvard Magazine’s Board of Directors will step down in September.

Smiling woman stands beside a large skull in a display cabinet.

From competing in youth gymnastics to studying tetrapods, the Harvard curator has always chased her curiosity.