| MTSU President Sidney McPhee and President Ye Gaoxiang of China’s Hangzhou Normal University brought Chinese and U.S. cultures closer by signing the Confucius Institute agreement Wednesday morning.
The signing, done in both English and Mandarin, officially marked the beginning of a partnership between the two schools to open a school of Chinese study at MTSU, CIMTSU, with the goal of increasing cross-cultural cooperation and education between the two countries, McPhee said.
MTSU is one of only two U.S. schools to be granted a Confucius Institute this year, joining the ranks of 80 other schools across the country and 282 schools world wide, said McPhee, an accomplishment that he says fits well into the plans to globalize the campus.
“CIMTSU is the putting of MTSU on the world stage,” McPhee said.
McPhee also said that MTSU will be receiving $500,000 over the course of five years by the Chinese government in order to support the CIMTSU, which will be managed by both MTSU and HNU officials. The dean of the school will be Yang Xiaohong, a professor in the school of foreign language at HMU.
The director of the institute for MTSU will be Guanping Zheng, associate professor in the department of electronic media communication in the College of Mass Communication.
“This will be one of the best in the whole world,” Zheng said.
The two schools will work together to determine policies and regulations for CIMTSU, as well as oversee teaching, research and fiscal operations. CIMTSU will provide, among other things, Chinese language and culture classes, training for teachers to teach Chinese languages and the promotion of research on contemporary China.
Gaoxiang said one of the key purposes of CIMTSU is research in how to raise efficiency in the learning and teaching of Chinese as a language. He also said he looks forward to future endeavors between the two schools like co-sponsorship of majors or masters programs in shared interests, such as music and philosophy.
Gaoxiang is at MTSU, along with a delegation from HNU, for a three-day visit to see the site of CIMTSU and discuss plans for its development and grand opening this spring. The delegation included the dean of CIMTSU, as well as the deans of the school of foreign language and school of materials and chemistry, and the vice director of the international cooperation and exchange division.
HNU is located in the city of Hangzhou, in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. McPhee said Hangzhou is a vibrant city and a major business city for China. It was a major point of interest for Gov. Phil Bredesen during his October trip to China, which was meant to improve trade relations between the country and Tennessee.
At the end of the ceremony, the HNU delegation presented MTSU with a gift, a hand-painted portrait of Confucius, designed through interpretations and descriptions in the many texts written by and about the intellectual leader. The painting will hang in the Confucius Institute.
Editor: Linda |
