Regents OK Confucius Institute At Northern State University
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Northern State University is on track to create a Chinese language and cultural center that will be the first of its kind in the Dakotas, a move officials hope will give students and the state a direct link to China’s growing economy.
The South Dakota Board of Regents voted 7-0 Wednesday to allow for the Aberdeen-based university to establish a Confucius Institute in conjunction with the University of Jinan in China. There are institutes in nearly every state except the Dakotas.
A Confucius Institute will allow the partner universities to exchange instructors, students and academic information in addition to giving them the opportunity to work on joint research and seminars. An agreement finalizing the partnership will be signed in early April on campus.
University President James Smith said the partnership will be especially beneficial to students looking for international business and study abroad experience.
“Being more acquainted with China will allow them to expand their professional portfolio,” he said.
The two universities plan to offer Mandarin Chinese courses to NSU students as early as fall 2015. No other University in South Dakota offers the language courses. Northern State stopped offering Mandarin language courses in 1996.
The regents pushed last summer for the Legislature to allocate $400,000 to fund the institute for the first year, but the memorandum agreed upon Wednesday shows that money will come from an anonymous private donor. The Confucius Institute Headquarters in Hanban, China, will also donate $150,000 in startup costs and a 3,000 volume library of Chinese books and teaching materials. All salaries of visiting personnel will be provided by the headquarters.
Plans are also underway to develop a cultural center in the university’s Beulah Williams Library, which would house Chinese cultural exhibit.
As of 2011, there were more than 350 Confucius Institutes in 104 countries, according to documents previously provided by the regents. The majority of U.S. states have at least one. If approved, the cultural center at Northern State would be one of the last in the country for now. The institute stopped taking applications to partner with American institutions at the end of 2014.
Northern State isn’t the first university in the Dakotas to vie for one.
The North Dakota Board of Higher Education had given Dickinson State University permission to establish a partnership with a Chinese university and set up a Confucius Institute, but it never happened. A majority of faculty members voted against the idea and state officials also found that the university had given Chinese exchange students hundreds of unearned diplomas.
