CSUN and China - 25 Years of Friendship

Justine Su logs many miles in air travel and burns a lot of midnight oil with one mission in mind: the promotion of friendship, understanding, exchange and cooperation between Cal State Northridge and China.

As director of CSUN’s China Institute, Su works with nearly 200 faculty, staff and community members, all volunteers who believe ardently in the mission. Together, they are sustaining and strengthening a relationship begun 25 years ago by the late James W. Cleary, then president of the university.

Under the leadership of Mack Johnson, associate vice president of Graduate Studies, Research and International Programs, Su and other faculty have helped CSUN establish more than 40 sister relationships with Chinese universities and governmental entities, train hundreds of young Chinese leaders, and link dozens of visiting Chinese scholars annually with CSUN faculty mentors.

Su, an educational leadership and policy studies professor who finds “spiritual and aesthetic rewards” in her work for the institute, regularly helps coordinate sparkling cultural events such as spring 2007’s free performance of the Beijing Opera at the Northridge campus. In turn, the Shanghai Normal University has hosted CSUN’s women’s chorale, its jazz band and its theatre students.

The institute’s advocacy has resulted in nine straight years of Chinese government scholarships to CSUN students for yearlong study at universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Sichuan and Tianjin.

A self-described “bridge for collaboration between our campus and China,” Su said her goal for the future is to promote more student exchanges. “Students,” she explained, “establish lifelong relationships.”