People walk through Polk Place on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024.
kmckeown@newsobserver.com
UNC-Chapel Hill has canceled its longstanding study-abroad program at Fudan University. The decision comes after the elite school in Shanghai was added to the Department of Defense’s list of problematic foreign institutions this summer.
The Department of Defense asked UNC to conduct an urgent audit of its foreign relationships in August in an effort to prevent “unauthorized technology transfer, intellectual property theft and adversarial exploitation.”
By then, the relationship with Fudan had already been flagged by an internal screening at UNC based on the Department’s updated list of potential threats. That’s according to a letter UNC sent to the Department of Defense on Wednesday, and which the university provided to The News & Observer after a public records request.
UNC ended the study abroad program at Fudan — one of China’s top universities — on Aug. 12.
Four UNC students currently studying at Fudan are not affected and will finish their semester abroad, the university said.
For years, UNC has sent students to take courses taught in English at Fudan’s School of Social Development and Public Policy and its International Summer School.
The two-way exchange program was proposed in 2013, and the partnership was last renewed in 2022.
Now, it’s a thing of the past.
Other UNC work with Chinese universities
UNC also identified “informal” relationships with two other Chinese universities on the Department’s no-go list, but the school argues they pose no threat.
One is led by a business school professor who collaborated with the Harbin Institute of Technology, surveying retail pharmacy staff to study organizational behavior at a large Chinese pharmacy company.
“Data collection has been fully completed, and the Chinese collaborator has formally ended her data gathering role,” UNC’s letter, signed by Chancellor Lee Roberts, reads. “The remaining work consists solely of data analysis and preparation of a manuscript for journal submission. This work is essential to the degree completion of two doctoral students at UNC.”
The other project is led by a professor in the School of Data Science and Society, who is studying, in collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, “how competing individuals weigh the well being of others in their decision making.”
Neither of these partnerships involve federal funding, and both will be terminated following the conclusion of the projects, according to UNC.
Jane Winik Sartwell covers higher education for The News & Observer.
