President Schill hosts delegation from Chinese university, renews UO ties with country

University of Oregon (UO) President Michael Schill hosted a delegation of five representatives from East China Normal University (ECNU) at his residence.

The ECNU delegation was led by Dr. Ren Youqun, ECNU Vice President and Dr. Zhou Yong, Director of Confucius Institute Office. They were joined by Si Yang, Director of ECNU Supervision Office, Zhuang Yu, ECNU Deputy Dean of School of Foreign Languages, and Li Yansa, Office Director of Institute of Global Chinese Language Teacher Education.

The meeting served as way to introduce ECNU partners to President Schill and celebrate a seven-year partnership between UO, Confucius Institute, and ECNU.

ECNU has established exchange and cooperative partnerships with more than 150 internationally renowned universities and academic institutions. ECNU is one of the first Chinese universities that established Confucius Institutes with overseas universities and institutions. UO is one of seven institutions with which ECNU has established a Confucius Institute partnership; nationwide, as of December 2015, there are about 100 Confucius Institutes in the United States.

Over the years, the partnership between UO and ECNU has nurtured many cultural activities and scholarly exchange. For example, the UO Center for Women and Gender Studies has sent scholars to and hosted colleagues from ECNU for conferences and panel discussions.

UO Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Doug Blandy and the Professor John Fenn will lead a Folklore Field School at ECNU this summer.

The Language Teaching Master’s Program initiated by the UO Linguistics Department has been talking with their colleagues in ECNU about a joint degree program using the strengths of ECNU in language teaching and teacher training.

The UO Office of International Affairs is currently working with ECNU leaders and UO alumni in Shanghai to develop an Academic Embassy in the city.

Aside from UO President Michael Schill, the delegation was hosted by Dennis Galvan, Vice Provost for International Affairs, Yugen Wang, Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Executive Director UO Confucius Institute, Ina Asim, Associate Professor of Chinese History, Lan Dai, Co-director of UO Confucius Institute, Li-Shan Chou, Professor and Department Head of Human Physiology, and Maram Epstein, Director of Chinese Graduate Studies.