On their first trip to the United States, Supaporn Tantisantisom and Jirawan Plungpongpan are learning about American teaching techniques so they can bring them back to their native Thailand.

The Thai professors, who speak English well, are at Cal State Stanislaus as visiting scholars.

“I would like to learn to teach in America,” said Tantisantisom.

The visiting professors are from a school in Bangkok called the Rajabhat Institute Chandrakasem. Tantisantisom recently was named dean of management science at the institute. Plungpongpan is the assistant dean in charge of the budget.

Chandrakasem school is part of a system in Thailand that is similar to the California State University system. The Thai system operates 41 school sites in various communities around Thailand. Chandrakasem is spread out at six sites within Bangkok.

A relationship has been built between Cal State Stanislaus and Chandrakasem for exchanging ideas.

In 1996, 40 academic vice presidents from Chandrakasem came to CSUS to take part in a Total Quality Management techniques conference.

That began an exchange that would lead CSUS professors Gene Murti and Viji Sundar to make regular trips to Chandrakasem.

Training was organized over two summers, jointly between the Office of Global Affairs and the College of Business at CSUS, said Linda Bunney-Sarhad of the CSUS Global Affairs office.

Murti now makes an annual trip with a group of professors to give seminars on current teaching methods. “In a country that is 95 percent Buddhist, I try to tie in Buddha’s ideas into my teaching,” said Murti.

He said one of his main focuses is creating an interactive teaching environment. He said he believes cultural differences have slowed the adaptation of interaction. “Here students speak out more; in Thailand students are more withdrawn,” said Murti. “It’s almost considered rude to talk to much.”

Sundar, a CSUS math professor, has begun to make trips to Chandrakasem. The CSUS math department recently held a conference where students from Thailand were hosted.

“The Asian currency crisis put a temporary end to the contractual training,” said Bunney-Sarhad. “Dr. Murti and Dr. Sundar went out of their way to continue building the relationship with the Chandrakasem campus.”

The two Thai professors came to the United States on June 20 and will be leaving Saturday. While they were here, they took a variety of classes. Their focus was on operations management, accounting and human resources.

Plungpongpan said she is interested in research methods used in the United States.

“There are not many students in the classes here,” said Tantisantisom. “Most of the classes at Chandrakasem have at least 50 to 60 students.”

Chandrakasem has gained a strong reputation for their masters of business administration program, which is geared toward small businesses, said Murti.

“When they first started out, Chandrakasem was like Stanislaus State in that they were viewed primarily as a school for teachers,” said Murti.

Murti said that next year he will be going to Thailand for a week in January for a seminar.

Tantisantisom and Plungpongpan said when they get back they will be busy starting new ideas including economic promotion.

“In the future we hope to have a budget that allows us to bring our entire faculty here,” said Tantisantisom.