A program at the University of Pittsburgh placing scholars from China in area K-12 schools and colleges to help teach language was halted for the upcoming year after the State Department required changes in the program, including more oversight of its instructors.
Campus officials Monday said they were unsure if concerns raised about the program that is operated out of Pitt’s Confucius Institute are related to rising tensions between the United States and China.
Nationally, a number of Confucius Institutes have been shuttered at universities in recent months amid prolonged criticism from some quarters — initially over academic integrity and Chinese influence over American instruction — and more recently about potential for espionage, as U.S.-China relations frayed.
Pitt’s institute, located in Posvar Hall and funded jointly by the university and the Chinese government, remains open, officials said. Its two Pitt staff members will offer grant-funded programming including lectures and film screenings.
The concerns leading to the program’s suspension arose from a routine audit last fall by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Private Sector Exchange Program Administration (OPA), officials said.
It resulted in new agency guidance in late July "regarding the visa status of 15 incoming scholars from China," said Ariel Armony, vice provost for global affairs and director of the University Center for International Studies.
Those scholars, a mix of undergraduate and graduate students from that country, were due in Pittsburgh on J1 visas to serve in an internship program.
"Unfortunately, the new guidance from OPA impacts the University’s ability to host CI-Pitt scholars and precludes us from running the program in the 2019-2020 academic year," stated a message from Mr. Armony posted to the Institute’s web site.
Among the requirements, “They are asking us to include co-teachers in the classroom with the interns whenever the interns are in the classes,” said Belkys Torres, the executive director of global engagement at Pitt.
She could not say Monday if the co-teachers must be from the various schools or why the State Department felt it was needed. She said Pitt so far has only limited information, and with no mention of global tensions in the agency’s guidance, it’s hard to know the cause.
“We’re still trying to get answers,” she said.
Comment from the State Department was not immediately available.
For almost 12 years, the institute has supported language instruction using Chinese scholars, Pitt said. In all, about 36,000 students in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York accessed Institute services, and its foreign language program for rural and suburban schools "has created a conduit to the broader world and provided opportunities for social mobility through language acquisition," Mr. Armony said.
Over the years, dozens of these at-times controversial institutes have opened across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2014, the American Association of University Professors issued a report that said universities in many agreements to open the institutes had allowed important safeguards to be eroded.
"Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom," the AAUP statement read. "Their academic activities are under the supervision of Hanban, a Chinese state agency which is chaired by a member of the Politburo and the vice-premier of the People’s Republic of China.
“Most agreements establishing Confucius Institutes feature nondisclosure clauses and unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China,” it further stated. “Specifically, North American universities permit Confucius Institutes to advance a state agenda in the recruitment and control of academic staff, in the choice of curriculum, and in the restriction of debate.”
The institutes typically are funded partly by the Chinese government and by the host campus. At its peak, about 90 such institutes operated in the U.S. and Canada, according to the online publication, Inside HigherEd.
Pitt's institute has given greater numbers of students opportunities to learn Chinese at a time when language study is declining nationally, Pitt officials said. The institute has enabled 28 school districts covering 22 counties to provide regular Chinese language classes.
Mr. Armony said Pitt's global engagement is growing and must continue to do so.
“Despite this unwelcome and unexpected development, our network of global engagements is growing,” he said. “Moving forward, we will continue to support and strengthen this network while adhering to all laws governing research, innovation and international partnerships.
Ms. Torres said Pitt remains committed to being a welcoming place for scholars from around the world.
“We’re a university that is meant to train the best and brightest,” she said. “To remain on the cutting edge, we need to be a globally engaged university.”
Bill Schackner: bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter: @Bschackner
First Published: August 26, 2019, 8:35 p.m.
