COLLEGE STATION, May 23, 2011 – Nearly 100 Texas A&M students — the largest number ever — will travel to China this summer as part of a university response to the Department of State’s “100,000 Strong” initiative, a national effort designed to increase the number of American students studying in China.
The university is sponsoring numerous programs that will allow Aggies to learn more about the culture, language, history and society of the world’s largest nation. The programs include one that will allow 25 members of the Corps of Cadets to travel to China and Taiwan to gain a deeper understanding of the geopolitics and pressures facing the nation. Other groups involve the Mays School of Business, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Education and Human Development and the Chemical Engineering Department.
Collectively, these groups represent close to a 40 percent increase in the number of students nationally studying in China through the “100,000 Strong” initiative, which was launched in November 2009 by President Barack Obama and is now led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The goal is to dramatically increase the number and diversify the composition of American students studying in China. In addition, the initiative seeks to redress the imbalance in mutual understanding between the countries to ensure that Americans have the cultural understanding and language skills that underpin effective diplomacy and foreign policy while enhancing American students’ ability to succeed academically and professionally in the global economy.
Secretary Clinton challenged American universities earlier this year to double the number of students who study in China by 2014, and Texas A&M has developed plans to fulfill this goal.
“Initiatives such as this play an important role in our Vision 2020 goal of preparing students for today’s highly connected global society,” President R. Bowen Loftin said. “We are pleased to be involved in this effort to offer our students even more opportunities to study in China.”
The university sent approximately 60 students to China in 2010, according to officials in Texas A&M’s Institute for Pacific Asia. Within the next four years, the goal for the institute is to raise the number of students participating in programs to China to 120. Elements of this plan include increasing the number of available scholarships, the number of faculty-led and university-sponsored programs in China, and outreach and education efforts.
Contact: Kelly Kleinkort, Institute for Pacific Asia at (979) 845-3099 or Krista Smith, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4645.
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