After serving as Director of China Institute at CSUN for 20 years (1995-2015) and establishing more than 40 MOU partnerships for CSUN with Chinese education institutions, Dr. Justine Su returned to Michael D. Eisner College of Education in 2015 to focus on teaching, research and program development in comparative education. In teaching, she has revived the graduate seminar on comparative education for students across the campus. In research, she initiated several projects in collaboration with her colleagues at CSUN and scholars in China, including a comparison of university teaching and learning in the U.S. and China, a replication of her earlier comparative study of school principals in Los Angeles and Shanghai, and two follow-up studies of the impact of study abroad experiences on the world outlook and career development for both Chinese scholars/students and for CSUN students, who received full scholarships from the China Scholarship Council for study abroad. In program development, Dr. Su applied and received more than $300,000 grants for short-term training programs in education from Shanghai and Zhejiang universities, and has secured more than $700,000 grant from Shanghai Education Commission for a 2-year master’s degree program in higher education at a CSU campus.
As a senior editor for the Journal of World Education by the Chinese National Ministry of Education, Dr. Su edited the translation of three papers on American education by Dean Michael Spagna at CSUN in 2015. She also wrote and published in this journal a paper on her comparative education studies, offering lessons to Chinese educators and publicizing CSUN’s excellent education programs. In addition, her research paper, “Ideal Schools for the New Century: A Comparative Analysis of American and Chinese School Principals’ Views and Visions,” first published in China’s scholarly journal, Education Research Monthly in summer 2015, was selected for reprint in two highly prestigious national journals in China - New China Readers’ Digest by the People’s Publishing House and Journal of Primary and Middle School Management by the Chinese National Ministry of Education Information Center for Social Sciences. Further, her presentations at international education conferences and several major Chinese teacher education institutions on the topic of “Chinese and American Education in Comparison” were enthusiastically received and invited for publication at major education journals and newspapers. Her published article in the popular Shanghai Social Sciences Weekly in 2015 has generated heated discussions among educator scholars and reformers in China.
Most recently, Dr. Su’s cover-page interview article in the Journal of World Education, “Strengthen U.S.-China Collaboration and Promote Internationalization of Higher Education,” was selected for inclusion as a chapter in the new book, China’s Education Dream, edited by Chinese National Center for Education Development and Research and published in Beijing in January 2016. Dr. Su is deeply grateful to CSUN MDE College of Education leaders and colleagues for supporting her efforts in developing comparative education projects and feels greatly honored to contribute to the creation and fulfillment of “China’s education dream,” an ideal comparable to the perpetual pursuit of equity and excellence in education for all in the “American dream.”
On Feb. 21, 2016, Dr. Su received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for her outstanding contributions to the development of U.S.-China relations and education collaboration, at the CSUN China Institute Annual Chinese New Year Party.
Dr. Su and Dean Spagna visit a model school in Shanghai