CCC Taking Off at LSU

January 7, 2009 —In a very short time, the Chinese Culture and Commerce Program at LSU has made some impressive progress.

Fahui Wang arrived on campus in August 2007 to direct the fledgling program, joining at the same time the faculty of the Department of Geography and Anthropology. Professor Wang had as one of his primary objectives to establish an exchange program with Tongji University, located in Shanghai. Dean Guillermo Ferreyra’s visits to Tongji in 2005 and 2006 paved the way for this initiative, developing connections and friendships with faculty and administrators there.

The program began in earnest with a faculty exchange in spring and summer 2007 when LSU Professor Angeletta Gourdine visited China and maintained a weekly blog for LSU students that provided an in-depth account of Chinese culture, scenes, and daily life from a Western perspective. In further developments, two members of the faculty of Tongji’s College of Foreign Languages visited LSU in spring 2008, teaching courses on Chinese culture, film, and literature as part of the Comparative Literature program at LSU. These two faculty members, Robin Hu and Alice Wei, very quickly adapted to the United States and particularly to South Louisiana culture. As the first two exchange faculty from Tongji, they set a high standard for the program and taught their students about China not only through film and literature, but also by sharing their own day-to-day experiences.

Wei shared these thoughts on her visit to the United States saying, “The trip to America is a great treasure both to me and to my students at Tongji, with whom I share what I have seen, heard, experienced, and learned in America. We have read many books about American society and American life. Now we have had the opportunity to learn the real world and how it functions.”

Wei went on to say, “In this globalizing world, peoples with different ideas and cultures are becoming more tolerant with each other as the rates of exchange and interactions increase. Only by full exposure to different cultures will one enjoy a broadened horizon and not be narrow-minded. So this Educational & Cultural Exchange program promotes the mutual understanding and friendship and will benefit both sides a great deal.”

Students will be spending a semester in China as participants in the exchange with Tongji University. One of those students, Tel Rouse, from Morse, Louisiana, explained recently why he is looking forward to his year abroad, “Since I was a child, I have always loved discovering new things and learning. I grew up in a very small community with virtually no diversity whatsoever, so coming to LSU has been a great change for me. I decided that I wanted to learn more about other cultures, and having had a great interest in Chinese cinema, I chose to minor in Chinese. I am now in my third semester of Mandarin, and even though I am a biological engineering major, Chinese is my favorite class.”

Tongji University has several strong programs that will benefit LSU students as they spend their year abroad. Founded in 1907 as Tongji German Medical School by German physician Erich Paulun, the school then became Tongji Medical and Engineering School in 1912. Formally established as a university in 1923, Tongji is well respected for its strong architecture, engineering and medical programs and, because of its background, a highly esteemed German language program.

The strength and vitality of this multidimensional, multi-disciplinary program at LSU and the corresponding collaboration and collegial spirit between LSU and Tongji University bode well for the program’s future and its value to both institutions.

Forever LSU, a fundraising campaign undertaken by LSU to raise more than $750 million for the University by the end of 2010, supports initiatives like CCC, as well as all University colleges and programs. To find out how you can be LSU’s next hero, visit www.foreverlsu.org.