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Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes: Spring 2008
Student on Fulbright, La Follette professor do lunch — in Beijing
Given that La Follette School faculty often go the extra mile for students, Melanie Manion’s offer to buy student Allison Quatrini lunch is not too surprising.
However, they had lunch in Beijing.
Allison Quatrini pauses in front of Tianchi Lake, Changbaishan, Jilin Province, China.
Manion took time out from a workshop on constructing legal institutions for anti-corruption efforts at Peking University in mid-January. In China since August on a Fulbright scholarship, Quatrini had arrived in Beijing in December to start her research at Peking University.
“I wanted to connect Allison and Professor Xie Qingkui, who is one of the most prominent public administration scholars in China,” Manion says. “It is practically impossible to get anything done in China without good friends, and I’ve known Professor Xie for 20 years.”
Xie heads the Chinese Local Government and Local Administration Research Center where Quatrini is examining the link between the election and selection of local government officials and the practice of Confucianism in a Leninist context.
Before arriving in Beijing, the international public affairs student spent almost four months in Harbin in northeastern China working on her language skills.
Manion and Xie collaborated on a survey project in the late 1980s and 1990s. Manion tries to see him every time she travels to China to conduct her research on corruption and Chinese politics and policy.
Xie joined the lunch group and gave Quatrini suggestions for contacts to help her plan her field research. “I especially appreciated his taking us to his office so I could find him easily again,” Quatrini says.
“I told Professor Xie that this working relationship makes him sort of a grandfather, as he was my mentor and Allison is my student,” Manion says.
Student with Fulbright, La Follette professor have lunch — in Beijing, February 1, 2008, La Follette School News