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| Living and Learning |
| Another Confucius Institute Opens-this time at the University of Kansas |
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¡¡¡¡These days, China is everywhere: open the newspaper, turn on the radio, look at the TV, buy just about any manufactured good in the stores, and there is China, front and center. China has rapidly gone from being a rather quaint old Communist relic on the edges of our world to being America's number one supplier, competitor, and obsession. Understanding China and its rapid economic ascent is going to be one of the major challenges facing the United States in the coming years and decades.
¡¡¡¡Happily, help is on the way, at least for students, businesses, and communities in Kansas and the Great Plains region. On May 4, 2006, the Confucius Institute at the University of Kansas was launched at the KU Edwards Campus in Overland Park by Governor Kathleen Sibelius and Chinese Vice Minister of Education Wu Qidi. The new Confucius Institute will serve Johnson County, Kansas, and the Kansas City metropolitan area by offering community classes in the Chinese language, supporting the teaching of Chinese at the K-12 level, and sponsoring public programs on Chinese business and culture.
¡¡¡¡¡°KU was one of the first universities in this nation to establish direct exchange programs in China,¡± according to University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway. ¡°Having the Confucius Institute here reflects the strength of KU¡¯s connection to China as well as our superb and extensive Chinese and East Asian programs. This will give this state and region a competitive advantage now as China is emerging as a leading economic force in the world.¡±
¡¡¡¡Designed to encourage better understanding of Chinese language and culture, 80 Confucius Institutes have been founded in 39 countries around the world by the Chinese Language Council International. The Confucius Institute at the KU Edwards Campus was the fourth chartered in the United States, following ones at the University of Maryland, the Chicago Public Schools system, and New York¡¯s China Institute. The Confucius Institute at the University of Kansas is led by William Tsutsui, a professor of East Asian history and director of the Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia, with associate directors Sheree Willis (a former U.S. Foreign Service officer in China) and Nancy Hope (a specialist in outreach to school districts and educators).
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¡¡¡¡As Time Magazine put it, ¡°If you want to get ahead, learn Mandarin¡± (June 19, 2006). The Confucius Institute is making this possible in northeast Kansas by offering non-credit Mandarin Chinese language courses at the Edwards Campus and in Lawrence. These practical and enjoyable classes, taught by professional, native-speaking teachers from Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, emphasize the conversational skills most useful for travel and business in China. Classes are scheduled at times convenient for professionals (before work and on weekday evenings) and the course fees are modest.
¡¡¡¡The Confucius Institute is also reaching out to K-12 education, where the demand for Chinese language is high but the supply of qualified teachers and the availability of classes is low. The Institute is partnering with the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center (Greenbush) to offer Mandarin Chinese by interactive distance learning (IDL) to high school classrooms across the state. The Confucius Institute is providing a teacher who, from a state-of-the-art wired classroom at KU in Lawrence, is connected in real time in audio and video with sites in Topeka, Marysville, Maize, Winfield, Deerfield, and Holcombe. As the first IDL initiative in Chinese of this scale in the United States, the project is an important pilot program in the use of educational technology. What¡¯s more, the 42 young people enrolled in the IDL class almost triples the number of K-12 students in Kansas learning Chinese this year.
¡¡¡¡Drawing on the deep expertise at the University of Kansas, the Confucius Institute also plans to offer a series of seminars and workshops on China, starting later this fall. Orientation sessions on travel in China will be designed for business, community, and school groups planning trips to China, as well as for more casual tourists. Workshops specifically targeted for the business community on topics such as negotiating in China, business culture in China, and Confucianism and business are currently being developed. As the Confucius Institute is dedicated to meeting the needs of businesses and the community, custom-designed seminars can be arranged, and can be held on-site at companies or organizations. This fall, for example, the Confucius Institute will offer a 10-week short course on Chinese language and business culture at a facility of Black & Veatch in Overland Park.
¡¡¡¡Having a Confucius Institute at the KU Edwards Campus provides a tremendous opportunity to build new bridges of cultural understanding between China and Kansas. Through public programs in Chinese language, culture, and business practices, the Confucius Institute will help Kansans master the challenges and opportunities of our increasingly integrated world.
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