By FIONA LAVROFF, KATHERIN THOUVENIN, JENSON SHEN, LI YAOQI, and JOHORA NAWREEN

Every year since the first enrollment of scholars in 2016, the Schwarzman College had taken part in the annual Tsinghua University graduate student choral competition. There was no way that a pandemic – which kept more than 80% of new scholars from starting their fellowships on the Beijing campus – was going to keep Schwarzman’s singers from participating.

When the competition arrived on December 2020, the Schwarzman choir was there: 20 in person at the New Tsinghua Hall and 30 more beamed in by video link from around the world. Performing Jay Chou’s Thousands of Mountains and Rivers, the hybrid choir sang: “You and I are in the same world. Love travels through it. Dreams and hopes are flying. I am going to chase them.” When they finished, the audience erupted in loud applause.

“It was really touching,” said Allison Zhang, a 2020-2021 scholar who is chair of the Schwarzman College Student Assembly. “It’s that idea of, even though you're really far apart, somehow you are all singing together. You're working towards the same goal in this very special format.”

Like its choral group, the Schwarzman program has shown stolid determination and has surmounted obstacles while building a global reputation for excellence and leadership.

While COVID-19 was a devastating blow for many educational institutions, Schwarzman quickly adapted to the new circumstances, despite the students being scattered in 19 different time zones. According to Schwarzman academic Associate Dean Xiaojun Qian, the students have been very cooperative and supportive, and have maintained good interaction with the teachers.

The pandemic has done little to slow down Schwarzman’s momentum. The program held online classes, scheduled guest lectures from around the world, live-streamed campus tours, held a virtual graduation ceremony, and welcomed a new cohort of 131 students in the fall.

For two Canadian and Dutch students, the cohesiveness took shape in the form of a student-teacher excursion. Travelling to an indigent elementary school in the southwest of China, the students taught English under the supervision of Schwarzman professors. The dynamic between professors and their students was also strengthened through their social exchanges such as practicing Tai Chi together.

“We were on hand when the students taught children English in the elementary school, in a very rural area,” Executive Dean Qingzhong Pan said in an interview with Global Business Journalism students. “All of these practices reflect the various interactions between teachers and students.”

In addition to this cohesiveness from the Schwarzman scholars and faculty members, the program maintained academic excellence through the difficult times. For Malik Majeed, a current student from Pakistan and based in New York, the stature of his guest lecturers and professors has not gone unnoticed.

“We’ve had the treasurer of the World Bank who is a Chinese national come to speak to us,” said Majeed, who is currently working as a consultant at Cornerstone Research in New York. “We’ve had Vice Minister Long Yongtu, who spearheaded China’s accession into the World Trade Organization. One of my favorite classes was about macroeconomics and taught by Professor Zhang Longmei, who was a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund.”

In the month of December alone, students heard Joseph Pfeifer, retired Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness at the Fire Department of New York, discuss the 9/11 terrorist attacks, former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry discussed America’s war in Afghanistan, and Barry Nalebuff, founder of Honest Tea, gave advice on “how to create a successful mission-driven business without sacrificing ideals.”

“I think we’re all very privileged to be a part of this program,” said Majeed, “and the resources they’ve devoted to us are incredible.”

Front gate of Schwarzman College. Picture from schwarzmanscholars.org

Launched in 2013, the Schwarzman Scholars program was founded by Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone Group and a global philanthropist. Located on the campus of China’s top university, Schwarzman College, formally established in 2015, is easily recognizable from the building’s architecture, blending Eastern and Western elements in an elegant design. The building accommodates students, also known as Schwarzman Scholars, on a postgraduate scholarship program aimed at creating global leaders capable of acting as a bridge between China and the rest of the world.

“Those who will lead the future must understand China today,” the founder noted.

Built around the three pillars of China, leadership, and global affairs, the program’s curriculum allows scholars to learn about China’s role in the world through its lectures, workshops, and mentorships.

One of the highlights of the curriculum is the “Deep Dive” course, which offers scholars a thorough understanding of China by affording students a one-week field trip to different regions of China in order to provide them with insights from leading companies, government agencies, and cultural sites.

“It was an amazing experience,” said Sophie Zinser, a 2020 alumna now working as a Schwarzman Academy Fellow at Chatham House in London. “We traveled to Xiamen in Southern China, and we were able to see not only how the city operated by speaking with people who worked in city governments, but also understand a bit more about the tech sector there and get a full picture of all the different industries.”

Leadership training is a fundamental part of the Schwarzman experience. The college promotes leadership through its core courses such as Leadership in Practice, immersing students in a cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural environment. The Leadership in Practice courses are taught by industry veterans with proven leadership skills.

“The idea is to let students learn what leadership is, not only from books, but also from practice,” added David Pan, Executive Dean and professor at Schwarzman College.

Malik Majeed during an online interview with GBJ students

Leadership at Schwarzman starts with the faculty. Every professor has ties to some of the best universities or most recognizable organizations and companies in the world: MIT, Harvard, Yale, Sciences Po, Volkswagen, UNESCO, Microsoft, Boeing —even Walt Disney.

“There’s no better person to challenge a leader than another leader, and I think we were able to see high-level leadership as well as pure leadership at Schwarzman every day,” said Zinser, a policy analyst who is fluent in Chinese, English, French and Arabic.

For College founder Steven Schwarzman, the program’s immense resources and excellent education are the results of a $600 million campaign to boost higher education in China. Delta Airlines and Tsinghua Unigroup are founding partners while its major funders include Lenovo, Mastercard and HSBC. The College’s Advisory Board composed of world leaders such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and former U.S. President Obama sent congratulatory letters to the inaugural class in 2016, with Xi expressing his wish for the Scholars to “broaden their horizons and communicate and learn from one another, which would serve the whole welfare of the entire world with their joint efforts.”