Honors Introduces Exchange Program in China
— by Kaitlyn Kelly
Documents have been signed to create a study abroad exchange program between the Honors College at Washington State University and the Chieng-Shiung Wu Honors College of Southeast University in Nanjing, the capital and largest city in the Jiangsu Province, which stretches across the east coast of China.
This program has been added to Honors’ exchanges offered in Europe at the University of Wales at Swansea and the University of Wales at Aberystwyth.
In March of 2012, Libby Walker, dean of the Honors College, Prema Arasu, associate vice president for international programs and WSU’s chief international officer, and David Mclean, professor and chair of the WSU Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, visited China with Warwick M. Bayly, provost and executive vice president of WSU. They toured Southeast’s facilities, residence halls, and the surrounding city; its population tops 8 million.
Walker says, “We are pleased to have another exchange program for Honors students, whose curriculum emphasizes global issues. China presents an amazing academic opportunity, and Southeast University will be an outstanding exchange partner for us.”
Bayly signed the agreement, which calls for two Honors College at WSU students to study at Southeast University in exchange for two Chien-Shiung Wu Honors College at Southeast University students to study at WSU. Honors students from all disciplines are eligible for the exchange, though Southeast University’s honors college is for students in engineering, physics, and architecture studies only.
The Global Learning department in WSU’s Office of International Programs administers various types of programs for students interested in education abroad, including exchanges. It will work closely with Honors on the new Southeast University exchange.
WSU students who plan to integrate a global perspective into their required thesis should consider this opportunity, says Walker. They will be completely immersed in the foreign culture as they would live in China for a semester or full year. Some courses at Southeast are taught in a bi-lingual format, and WSU students taking Mandarin dialect Chinese courses in Pullman would have the chance to improve their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills there.
Southeast University is a comprehensive university operating under the Chinese Ministry of Education. Founded in 1902, the university is one of 10 top research universities in the country. Students can take courses from 30 departments and work toward any of 69 undergraduate degrees.
Southeast has hosted international students from over 60 countries. They welcome WSU students to an extraordinary academic experience in China, as they encourage their own students to study abroad, says Walker.
This summer, four students from Southeast University will travel to the U.S. for a physics conference in Philadelphia and will extend their trip to include a visit to WSU and the Honors College from August 1-5. They will be accompanied by Yinghui Kuang, Deputy Dean of the Chien-Shiung Wu Honors College, Hong Huang, the International Program Coordinator of the Honors College, and Zhi-Yong Zhou, lecturer in the Department of Physics at Southeast University.