Brainy Ideas from ‘the Rome of the Rim’

It’s a happy cliche that education can be broadening. Steven Sample, the president of the University of Southern California, is working on giving a grand Pacific Rim spin to the concept. He and some of his higher-ed colleagues propose to link arms with some of the best universities in the western U.S., Asia and Latin America to develop a high-level brain trust for our emerging Pacific Rim community.

Notable California competitors to his own USC are joining him in his effort, including neighbors UCLA and Caltech. No surprise, he says: “My colleagues all agree that L.A. is the most dynamic and diverse urban area of the world--the gateway between Asia and America. In fact, L.A. is the Rome of the Rim.”

Hey, I like the sound of that--the Rome of the Rim! Imperial hot air notwithstanding, Sample may be on to something with his Assn. of Pacific Rim Universities. Its four founding institutions--the three from Southern California, joined by UC Berkeley, are, like many top universities in America, practically brand names overseas, not least in Asia, where very high value is placed on education and a U.S. degree is worn like a badge of honor. Attention will thus be paid in Asia and Latin America when premier West Coast universities propose to bond with other leading PacRim academic institutions. To be sure, the idea is still only one big gleam in the eye of its founding fathers. But while letters of invitation to the initial charter meeting in June at USC went out only a month or so ago, acceptances are coming in from all over, including, as of this writing, leading schools in Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand.

To take on common challenges like economic development, urbanization, technology transfer, pollution and resource depletion, the new association would utilize all of the academic world’s vaunted bag of tricks, whether expanded student and faculty exchanges, transoceanic joint professorships, special PacRim conferences, or new combinations of intellectual firepower not yet tried. For their part, the heads of dozens of top PacRim universities--and only the top dogs at each institution--would meet summit-style once every year.

Sample, who in 1991 escaped the frozen tundra of the New York state university campus in Buffalo, where he was president, has clearly warmed to the sunny optimism of the PacRim idea. The university logically follows from the internationalist outlook of USC’s own strategic vision. As Sample puts it, “We all want to be more effective contributors to an increasingly integrated Pacific Rim community.”

Alas, such a cooperative outlook is a minority view these days, with a wave of vitriolic anti-China sentiment threatening to swamp all sorts of projects with Asia. One leader of the charge is Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), with his attacks on another important PacRim proposal: Long Beach’s plan to convert a shuttered naval station into a cargo terminal for leasing to a state-owned Chinese shipping firm that has been doing business with the port since 1981. He wants to sink the whole idea--too many commies coming to our shores for his taste. It’s as if people like him (and, unfortunately, he’s far from alone) prefer living in the 1950s, when there seemed to be a commie under every bed, or at least a vote for every politician who claimed to see one under your bed. Said he: “My legislation will prevent a communist Chinese beachhead at the naval station.” Yes, he actually used those words. Unless Hunter is gunning for a role as a right-wing nut in a “Dr. Strangelove” revival (Are the commies after our “precious bodily fluids,” maybe?) people are going to wonder how many marbles he has left. But wait! Maybe Hunter is on to something: If you look carefully at this patently pinko linkup of universities, you’ll detect on the invite list no fewer than four from communist China. This fellow Sample would actually allow those commie academics an intellectual beachhead on our American campuses! This might even call for some kind of congressional investigation, no?

Back to reality: “Community” is an overused word, but the PacRim really does seem to be evolving into something like one. Los Angeles, Tokyo and Singapore are these days as important to the world and one another as New York, Paris and Rome. The university group aspires to be this new community’s on-call brain (not commie) cell. Perhaps the new anti-China wave won’t even dampen Sample’s excellent initiative, but I do wish people like Hunter would stop living in the past, move into the 21st century and get with the program.