FLEX TIME La n g u ag e L e ar n i n g : A G l oba l G at e way
language program and China Care Club.
“(Matt) had a big part in sparking my interest
in the language by exposing me to the issues facing the country,” Vallely said.
An Upper School Mandarin teacher also
helped nurture Vallely’s nascent passion. Michelle Liu, who has since left Brunswick, was raised in China, and did more than simply school her students in nuances of the tonal language. She shared her life experiences.
“It was more Chinese than my classes were in
college,” Vallely said. “She was a real, traditional Chinese person.”
A decade after its inception, Mandarin at
Brunswick continues to thrive. Launched with just a handful of Upper School students in 2002, the classes have grown to be the second most popular at Brunswick, with a Middle
James “Bud” Vallely ’08 began to study Mandarin at Brunswick “on a whim,” he said. Today, he works in Shanghai for Morgan Stanley.
School program added in 2006.
Today, 54 Brunswick Middle School students
study Chinese, while enrollment at the Upper School has stabilized at about 40 a year.
‘A Whim’ Blossoms into Career in China By Katherine Ogden
J
ust a few short years ago, James “Bud” Vallely ’08 was an Upper School junior with a notion to study Chinese. Today, thanks to Brunswick’s thriving
Chinese language program, that notion has devel-
oped into a budding career in international finance.
In May, Vallely graduated from the University
of Vermont. A month later, he started a new job with Morgan Stanley.
But he didn’t move to New York.
Instead, he moved more than 7,000 miles away
from home, to Shanghai.
Vallely actually works for Morgan Stanley
Huaxin Securities Company Limited, a joint venture intended to help the U.S. company establish a presence in China at a time when global banks still can’t practice on their own there.
Vallely credits the language skills he first started
to learn at Brunswick with the opportunity to combine his interests and work in his chosen field.
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times of Brunswick • Fall 2012
“I had it on my mind how great it would be to
perfect my skills here,” he said.
“I got really lucky,” he added, modestly.
Though this is the first time Vallely has been to
China, the dream for this career was planted long ago, when Vallely took a chance and enrolled in a Beginning Mandarin course at Brunswick.
“It started off just on a
“By any standard or measurement, the
numbers are impressive,” said Jamie GonzalesOcana, chair of the Brunswick Modern Language Department.
As the numbers grow, so, too, does the depth
of student work. Three juniors took the Advanced Placement exam last year, leading the department to create college-level Advance Seminar Chinese course. Another senior is
whim,” he says.
doing a multidisciplinary
Midway through Upper
Independent Study Project
School, Vallely says he was
in Chinese and History.
bored with usual romance
languages like French and Spanish, and had a good friend in Matt Dalio ’01, whose own passion for China and its culture were an inspiration.
As a boy of 11, Dalio had developed a lifelong
love of China after living in Bejing for a year. Later, Dalio volunteered for a summer in a Chinese orphanage, and learned first-hand how babies with medical problems faced an especially bleak future.
The experiences sparked a passion in Dalio
for the country and its people, and in 2002 a Dalio family gift launched the Brunswick Chinese
For Vallely, it wasn’t
until college that he realized China’s influence in the world and how important it would be to speak the language in the future. He recommends the language to those who are today dreaming about a future career in business or finance.
“China has been going through an age of
financial reform for over the past decade,” he says, adding: “The country and its language will only become more relevant to anyone interested in finance or business.”
B