Confucius Institute celebrates inauguration at UI
By Kelli Andresen
September 22, 2006, marked a special day for Chinese cultural and language acquisition studies at The University of Iowa. On that day, leaders from the UI community and Chinese government came together for the official opening of the Confucius Institute at the University of Iowa.
The inaugural event marked the celebration of an agreement officially established between the UI and The Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) on March 15, 2006. The Confucius Institute is a project of the Chinese government to strengthen cultural exchange between China and a number of important countries.
“The University of Iowa is deeply honored to partner in this endeavor, named for Confucius, whose influence has been so long and so profoundly felt not just in Chinese history and culture, but throughout the world,” said Michael Hogan, UI executive vice president and provost. “Confucius above all else was, I think, a teacher, one whose respect for learning was the core of his lectures, not to mention his desire to share that learning and to inspire others with it. In fact, Confucius believed that it’s in our nature and our responsibility to learn from one another. In his view, we must cherish our own knowledge and continually acquire new knowledge so as to be better teachers to one another. That is what the Confucius Institute at the University of Iowa is all about.”
William Reisinger (right) on the Great Wall of China with Andreas Gold, a professor and vice president of the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
The first Confucius Institute authorized in the United States was at the University of Maryland and today there are more than 90 Confucius Institutes in the world in 41 countries and regions. Confucius Institutes have been established at major universities such as the University of London, University of British Columbia, the University of Auckland, Stockholm University and many others.
The institute at The University of Iowa, which is the 6th of 12 in the United States, has a special focus on second language acquisition and is composed of three sub-units: the Center for Chinese Language and Culture (CCLC), the International Center for the Studies of Chinese as a Foreign Language (ICSCFL) and the Journal of Chinese Applied Linguistics (JCAL), which will serve as an academic platform for teachers and scholars of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). This will allow them to publish their CFL research, as well as communicate and share their academic practice and ideas.
The Confucius Institute, which is part of UI International Programs, draws upon the considerable expertise and resources in a number of colleges and units at the UI, including the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, UI Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education (FLARE) Program Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), College of Education, Graduate College, College of Law, and Office of Vice President for Research.
Tom Jorgensen/University Relations
Xu Jinzhong (left), the Consul General of the Chinese Consulate in Chiago and UI Interim President Gary Fethke unveil a plaque in honor of the Confucius Institute at The UI while Chuanren Ke, Confucius Institute director, and Michael Hogan, UI executive vice president and provost (far left), look on during the Sept. 22 inauguration cermony.
Prior to the ceremony, UI graduate student Zhang Su performed traditional Chinese music. Xu Jinzhong, the Consul General of the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, provided remarks, along with Chuanren Ke, director of the UI Confucius Institute; UI Interim President Gary Fethke; Hogan; William Reisinger, associate provost and dean of International Programs; and Cyndi Chen, administrator for the Division on the Status of Iowans of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage. James Watson, a member of the institute's Board of Trustees, UI alumnus and professor of anthropology at Harvard University, provided the keynote address.
According to Chuanren Ke, director of the UI Confucius Institute and associate professor of Asian languages and literature, the UI’s Institute will focus on Chinese language teacher training and research on the learning and teaching of Chinese as a foreign language. Ke said these are two areas UI is known for on an international level because of the University’s critical mass of top-notch researchers in SLA Chinese in the field. The UI is the only American university that has a PhD program in second language learning in Chinese and has a number of graduate and undergraduate programs in Chinese language learning and teaching. Ke said this will differentiate the UI from other Confucius Institutes around the world and is one of the reasons the UI was chosen by Hanban.
A residence inside the Confucius estate in Qufu.
“Hanban recognizes it is important to generate knowledge on how people go about and learn Chinese as a foreign language – how they acquire the pronunciation, how they acquire the reading skills, how they go about and learn the Chinese grammar – because generated knowledge is important. The knowledge will be important for teachers. It will help them teach better,” Ke said.
As part of the agreement with Hanban, the UI was able to hire two native speaking Chinese language professors, Xuhu Tan and Xinwei Xu from East China Normal University, to teach courses for the 2006-2007 academic year. This fall, the Confucius Institute began offering Chinese language courses, including a four-course series of beginning Chinese, offered through the UI Department of Asian Languages and Literature, for high school students, UI students, non-degree students and adults, who have little Chinese language background. In addition to University courses, the Institute offers community classes and introductory modern Chinese through the Belin-Blank Center’s Challenge Saturday classes for youth and the Hoover Elementary After-school Program.
“It’s a chance to really strengthen the opportunities we can bring to our students and to people in the community to learn about Chinese culture and to begin learning the language, which of course opens the door to that culture even wider,” Reisinger said.
The welcome ceremony for the Confucius Institute conference delegates in Confucius's home town of Qufu.
Judy Polumbaum, director of CCLC and professor of journalism and mass communication, said she hopes this will help to strengthen the existing ties the UI has with the Chinese government and Chinese universities as well as increase external funding for projects organized through the Institute.
In July 2006, Ke and Reisinger traveled to Beijing, China, for a Confucius Institute conference. At the conference, Hanban brought together the directors and administration of all of the Institutes around the world as well as the educational leadership of China. Over two days, the group discussed the Confucius Institute movement, goals and how the Confucius Institute can move forward.
Both Ke and Reisinger say they are optimistic about the possibilities the institute holds for the UI and International Programs.
“Having a Confucius Institute at the UI is a good thing. It brings prestige to the University of Iowa and it can help us compete with our peer institutions like Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota when applying for external funding,” Ke said.
“There is potential for a lot of deeper kinds of collaboration,” Reisinger said. “This really marks us as one of the universities that is seen by the Chinese government as one of the strong American universities with a lot of strength in research and different fields of science and scholarship. We now can build on that as we can begin making collaborative projects with Chinese universities.”