Sarah Sowell
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Songying Fang, Associate Professor, Rice University, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Several years ago, as a part of the Gateway Study of Leadership program at Rice University, students were asked to interview professors in the social science school. Nadia Khalid chose to interview Songying Fang, an associate professor of political science. Dr. Fang earned her PhD at the University of Rochester in 2006 and has worked at Rice University since 2009. Her academic research centers on state behavior in international institutions and interstate conflict, using game theory and empirical research to explain their interactions. Her unique background and dedicated focus are evident throughout this insightful interview. 

Growing up in China, Dr. Fang attended both undergraduate and some graduate school there, majoring in economics. She recounts that her time in the Chinese higher education system was different from the American school experience, emphasizing students tend to listen in China and to talk in America. She explains in her own experience at an American university, she initially“adopted the approach to listen first about what others have to say and just trying to figure out what’s going on.” She says that this experience of gradually adapting to a different learning environment has given her a chance to connect better to international students, encouraging them to speak up, something she is in a unique position to do.

Because Rice University has relatively smaller classes, Dr. Fang encourages discussions and exchanges, especially during seminar courses. This is because one of her goals for students in her class is for them to be proactive and leading discussions. As a professor, she looks for leaders in her classes, noticing not just the loudest voices but also a variety of traits that encompass a leader. In fact, she views it as an integral part of instructing, saying, “I encourage the students to be future leaders.” Still, she remains in charge of the class, both fostering discussion and modeling leadership herself, remarking “I want to strike a balance between being the leader but also giving significant freedom to students to express what they think.”

Other parts of Dr. Fang’s background also continue to influence her work. As a former economics major, she shifted her focus after realizing “that what I was most interested in is politics, but not just certain events; I wanted to understand why things happen the way they do,” and this dedication to deep understanding is evident in her discussion of her research. Instead of just focusing on issues and solutions, her work dives deep into the complex causes of political trends. One of the interview’s most interesting sections is a sidebar focusing on Dr. Fang’s research on non-democratic countries’ involvement in international organizations, even when there is no clear reason to do so. She politely challenges preconceived notions, showing a dedication to find the (possibly numerous) root causes of this phenomena.

Her final advice for students is simple: remember, you go to college to learn. She believes that while extracurricular involvements are deeply enriching, it’s imperative for students to put their education first. One thing she thinks “would be useful for a student to [understand] is that the four years that they have at Rice, or at any undergrad institution, is the best time for learning.” After all, as she points out to the interviewer, students will always have a chance to pursue their passion and projects, but college is the only time they have to entirely dedicate themselves to education. She notes that “most students will realize immediately after they graduate…they can’t get that [dedicated learning time] anymore. A lot of competing demands from their lives, from their job, they just won’t have the environment where they’re just allowed to study knowledge.” 

Highlights from the Interview by Nadia Khalid:

When you were growing up, did your parents expect that you would come to political science? Was that always your career path, or did it just come about?

In my case, my mother was a teacher, my dad was a researcher, though he was not at a university; he was at an academic unit studying philosophy.

Growing up, I was always interested in having a lifestyle similar to his. I think what impressed me was that I woke up in the evening and saw the light was still on in the room, and I find that the…I can’t quite describe it. I feel the intellectual life was something very appealing and the idea of thinking about something deeply…That’s meaningful, and that was always very attractive to me. I always somewhat wanted to be a researcher and, more specifically as I went through my graduate study, to be a professor, both teaching and research.

What was your trajectory?  Did you go straight to college right from high school?

I did my college and university in China, and then I started my graduate study there as well, and then I applied to schools. I studied economics before I came to the United States, and then I realized that what I was most interested in is politics, but not just certain events; I wanted to understand why things happen the way they do. I wanted to understand the reasons, and so I decided to transfer to the political science program in the University of Rochester, and I’ve been enjoying doing it.

Did you feel the transition from China to the American education system was very easy for you? What were the big differences?

Yeah, so I guess I can answer it in two parts. One is my own experience, the other is the teaching aspect of it. Yeah, I do think that there is more emphasis here for students participating in classes, and you need to speak up instead of being quiet and just listen. I think in my own experience, in the first two years—when I was in graduate school in the US—I tended to stay more or less quiet.

But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t ask questions when…I really want to understand, and I didn’t have problem to ask about it. But I adopted the approach to listen first about what others have to say and just trying to figure out what’s going on. Sometimes, you don’t necessarily know what’s going on, both because of the language issues and because of subject matter…

With the students that I’m teaching, I think we get pretty diverse student bodies, and because of my own experience, I think I do offer more understanding to, say, foreign students, Asian students, where they’re coming from in terms of cultural background. I try to encourage them to speak up more and also understand maybe they initially have some language issues that need to be taken into account when I lecture. 

I think that for leaning, both the ability to listen and the ability to express yourself are equally important. Sometimes students feel that they don’t know enough, they can’t contribute, so they tend to just be quiet all the time. I think what’s important to remember is that maybe the questions you have, others do have the same questions. And the other thing is it’s such an efficient way to just ask instead of trying to figure out [by yourself]. You know, if you go back, and you do a search for answers, and it takes much more time. Why don’t you just raise it to the professor or fellow students? So, that part of it is somewhat easier to address, I think, once you realize that—okay, you adapt to the culture, you adapt to the environment, people do tend to speak up more. 

The other part, often overlooked, is the ability to listen to others. In my seminar, for example, I have a structure that I use to run the class…I think it helps for students to learn from each other.  One drawback would be that they would be speaking at the same level, they share information, or they share thoughts, but then you need new information to be injected into the discussion. I think of that as an instructor’s role. So I tend to run my seminar putting in some structure, so that when I feel students are maybe running a circle, then I’ll cut it off—I break the discussion and provide information or provide my comments. At the same time, you do want to understand where students are. But I think that applies to students, too. I think it’s important to listen to what others are thinking instead of focusing too much on expressing your own opinion and just go on and on, without realizing that maybe others have a different view.

Could you talk a little about your research? I saw in some of your articles, you talk about non-democracies and the problem with economic reform, and you talked about how they should look to international institutions.

I think my research interests, first of all, focus on international institutions. I study how institutions can change countries’ behavior, and you have to put this into context of what we know about international system. And there’s, I think, a lot of scholars who agree that international system at the very basic level is anarchic, meaning that there’s no world government that can regulate state behavior. So it seems that, at least in principle, states can do whatever they want…But in reality, that is not what we observe.For example, right now, it’s very interesting that Palestinians are interested in taking their statehood to the United Nations. It’s just that there’s something about international institutions that are important. They represent some kind of legitimacy. So, the question is, given that the world seems to be anarchic, why is it that countries pay attention to what an institution says?

[The UN has] no credible enforcement power. Its enforcement power can really only come from member states willing to contribute to whatever the UN calls for, but countries don’t have to.  So, the question is, given that institutions are largely toothless, why states would still pay attention to what they say. So that has always fascinated me.

All of my work, more or less, sort of focuses on answering that question by providing so-called causal mechanisms. Really, causal mechanism, basically, is an explanation about why. Why do we observe this type of behavior from states? In different projects, I try to explain what could be that causal mechanism for institutions to be effective. One of the papers will be talking about how domestic politics is the causal mechanism, and leaders feel that they have to appear in front of domestic audiences at least that they are unbiased in their policy choice. And institutions can provide legitimacy to their policy or confirm that what the leader chooses to do is the right policy.  Domestic politics, in my opinion, is one reason that states care about what institutions say. That causal mechanism may apply to democracies in particular because leaders are subject to electoral pressure. 

For non-democracies, as you mentioned, causal mechanisms might be different. Now, empirically, we do observe non-democracies care about institutions as well. For example, China was interested in joining the WTO [World Trade Organization]. China is a permanent member of the [UN] Security Council, so non-democracies care about institutions. The question is, why? Why, what is causal mechanism? If there is no election, what is the alternative mechanism that makes states or governments that are non-democratic still pay attention to it? So that is the big question, and I am still sort of in the process of trying to figure that out, and I’m doing pieces of projects as I make progress on answering that question.

How do you remain a leader in the classroom and how do you cultivate leadership in the classroom?

I’ll talk about it as an instructor and then how I encourage the students to be future leaders.

I think as an instructor it is important that you have an agenda to come across or you have a goal for the semester, what you want students to take away. That is something that I need to make sure to be implemented in the teaching so that, even in the seminar, I don’t just let the students talk throughout the class. You have to inject what things you want them to take away, and that’s part of it. I’m trying to strike a balance between providing a structure and also allowing students to have their input. That is both interesting among themselves, also interesting to me, because you have to know what students think to know what will be the best way to convey information. So that’s from my teaching philosophy. I want to strike a balance between [being] the leader but also giving significant freedom to students to express what they think. 

The part of trying to encourage the student to become leaders—I think the most important part of it is to give them tools rather than information. To me, it’s less important to tell them what’s happening, so the events—which I think students can find out themselves by reading newspapers. If anything, these days there’s too much information. I think what could potentially be lacking is analysis of information. Information [alone doesn’t] tell you anything until you know how to sort it out. I think that’s what I try to do, to teach student tools to analyze information. I don’t tell them what the conclusion should be, but I hope to give them the tools so that they come to conclusions themselves. It’s much more important, I think, to teach a student about how to approach a problem and draw their conclusions.

Can you talk about the biggest challenge you think students face right now in terms of their undergraduate educational experience? Is there something that you notice overall that’s different from your time as an undergraduate that you see as the big obstacle to the undergraduate experience?

I wouldn’t put it as obstacle, but one thing that I think would be useful for a student to [understand] is that the four years that they have at Rice, or at any undergrad institution, is the best time for learning. That is the priority.

Sometimes I think students can forget this, especially as they progress into senior years, when they start to have a lot of other engagements. They’re all useful experiences to be leaders of some kind of student organization and engage in charity work. It’s all great!  But I think one should not forget that this is the time where they can actually sit down and, in a very protected environment, where everybody’s trying to help them with learning. And one thing most students will realize immediately after they graduate is that they can’t get that anymore. A lot of competing demands from their lives, from their job, they just won’t have the environment where they’re just allowed to study knowledge. When you graduate, you’re only twenty-two, there’s a whole life ahead of you if you want to do extra stuff that’s interesting. Don’t forget you’re a student first.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.