MEDIA RELEASE
In Chinese, Cal State Northridge is Beiling
(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Aug. 4, 2008) — It started with a simple visit to China in 1978. Since then, California State University, Northridge, or as it is known in China, Beiling (North Ridge), has emerged as a key destination for Chinese scholars who want to study in the United States.
The CSUN’s educational and cultural relationships with Chinese academics began with a conversation in 1978 between then Northridge President James Cleary and physics professor Paul Chow, who had just returned from a trip to China.
"When I was in China, I met a lot of students who wanted to come to the United States. I came back with a lot of these names," Chow said. "I went to Jim. Jim didn’t say much. He took me from his office through a back door across the hall to Ted Sharpe, who was in charge of foreign students. He told Ted Sharpe the situation in China, and asked ‘What can you do about it?’"
Chow, today an emeritus professor and former director of CSUN’s China Institute, recalled Cleary saying, "I want to make this campus an international campus."
Angela Lew, also a former head of the China Institute and an emeritus librarian, worked on campus at that time.
"Back in the late ‘70s¯after President Nixon visited China—CSUN was one of the first American universities to pursue educational and cultural exchanges with Chinese universities," she said.
The university’s relationship with Chinese academe was so strong, she recalled, that "the first public speech given by the first Chinese ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Cai Zemin, was given at Cal State Northridge in maybe ‘80 or ‘81."
It was about that time, in 1981, when Cleary signed CSUN’s first foreign student exchange agreement with China.
A year later, a team of faculty led by geography professor I-Shou Wang established the China Institute to encourage exchanges, promote better understanding of the Chinese culture and strengthen ties between the American and Chinese people. Today, the institute, now headed by education professor Justine Su, counts 200 faculty, staff and community members among its volunteer members.
In 1988, Cleary visited China for a third time. Asked what he wanted on the agenda, the president wanted to visit with Northridge’s Chinese alumni. "That was very hard, because they are paid very low and they are scattered all over China," Chow recalled. So Cleary cleared the way by paying for the Chinese alumni’s travel costs.
In the 30 years since the initial conversation between Cleary and Chow, Cal State Northridge has established collaborative relationships with more than 40 "sister" universities in China.
Through the years, the China Institute has played a key role in bringing to the campus student and faculty from China as visiting scholars, including hundreds of young education, government and business leaders.
The relationship is not one-way. Numerous CSUN students and faculty have also gone to China. Earlier this year, for example, Louis Rubino, an associate professor of health sciences, took a student group there. One of them, Deborah Tang, will return in a couple of months to do a short internship at Guangzhou Medical College. During spring break, John Zhou, an associate professor of finance, real estate and insurance, took students to several Chinese cities to witness the dramatic economic growth in the region.
In addition, for the past nine years the Chinese government has awarded full scholarships, covering tuition and living expenses, to allow CSUN students to study in that country. The most recent recipients of the scholarships, finance grad Matthew Myers and broadcast journalism grad Dara DiGerolamo, are expected to leave for China next month. Myers will spend the 2008-2009 academic year at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics while DiGerolamo will study at Shanghai Fudan University.
The China Institute also has been influential in arranging cultural exchange programs. Over the years, CSUN has hosted the first Chinese film festival held at a U.S. university, co-produced a bilingual Chinese/English opera on campus and sent a team to debate the Chinese international forensics team. More recently, Shanghai Normal University has hosted the CSUN women’s chorale, the jazz band and theatre students.
Continuing in that tradition, theatre students from Shanghai Normal University are scheduled to perform at CSUN the evening of the first day of fall classes and Northridge students will travel to China to perform in November.
California State University, Northridge is celebrating "50 years of life-changing opportunities" this year. The university has 35,200 full- and part-time students and offers 64 bachelor’s and 50 master’s degrees as well as 28 teaching credential programs. Founded in 1958, CSUN is among the largest single-campus universities in the nation and the only four-year public university in the San Fernando Valley. The university serves as the intellectual, economic and cultural heart of the Valley and beyond.