Georgetown’s international presence has widely expanded this past year as a result of the opening of a liaison office at Fudan University in China last January. The program has had its successes, but still looks to the future for further growth of intercultural dialogue.
In addition to facilitating various opportunities for collaborative research efforts between the Georgetown community and their counterparts at partner universities in China, the liason office has served as a networking tool for both alumni and current students searching for internships or jobs throughout the world.
“There is [now] a wider awareness and respect of Georgetown in China and vice versa,” said Samuel Robfogel, director of the Office of International Initiatives on Georgetown’s main campus.
“The main improvement or success of the office [has been making] China more accessible to the Georgetown faculty and the Georgetown community more generally,” Robfogel said.
Since the launch of the partnership, many educational and research opportunities for members of the Georgetown and Fudan communities have been established through the liason office. Ongoing initiatives include expanded study abroad opportunities as well as an upcoming summer session for high school students offered through the School of Continuing Studies entitled, “Georgetown Abroad: Discover China.”
Furthermore, a Global Health Summer Program managed by the School of Nursing and Health Studies of Georgetown and Fudan’s School of Public Health at the Fudan Medical School will host about 15 Georgetown students this summer. Fudan University’s School of International Relations and Public Affairs has also been awarded a full scholarship for a two-year program in which a Georgetown student will be set to obtain a master’s degree in Chinese politics and diplomacy at Fudan.
As for future prospects for Georgetown-China relations, Robfogel said that more post-doctoral fellowship recruitment and opportunities are in the cards for the future.
“It will be more of the same in terms of more faculty research projects for individual faculty members on both sides of the ocean,” Robfogel said.
Georgetown is currently hosting five post-doctoral fellows from Fudan University, two of whom arrived this semester. In the past year, Georgetown initiated a medical exchange with Fudan’s Huashan Hospital, sending eight professors to Fudan University for the Fudan-Georgetown Joint Science Symposium and partaking in a seminar entitled “U.S.-East Asian Relations: New Trends and Developments” in December 2007 led by the Center for American Studies at Fudan, in cooperation with Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.
In addition, a follow-up to the December 2007 seminar is planned for sometime in 2009, as is a follow-up to the June 2008 Fudan-Georgetown Joint Sciences Symposium, which will be held here at the main campus this upcoming summer. The summer program for Fudan Masters of Public Administration students will also resume here at Georgetown during summer 2009.
Various teaching projects, including pilot programs conducted by the Fudan and Georgetown history departments, have been enhanced by the opening of the office as well. Georgetown Professor Clive Foss lectured at Fudan during May and June 2008, on Middle Eastern history and Professors James Millward of Georgetown and Yao Dali of Fudan conducted parallel courses on their respective campuses on the history of Sino-Western contact. Although planned videoconferencing capabilities for the classes experienced technical difficulties, students at both universities were able to collaborate via e-mail.
As new programs and initiatives are planned for 2009, students and faculty will continue to have the opportunity to further engage in cross-cultural learning and research through Georgetown’s Shanghai liaison office.
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