Initiatives 

The Wisconsin China Initiative has three major program areas in which it is developing projects to accomplish the mission of the Initiative.

Broaden and Deepen China Expertise at the UW

The Wisconsin China Initiative is committed to broadening and deepening China expertise at the UW, both at the Madison campus and across the System. We are doing this by:

• Expanding China-related course offerings for undergraduate and graduate students through new faculty lines, enhanced funding for graduate teaching assistantships, and course development grants for faculty interested in creating new courses on China.

• Expanding the range of study abroad options for UW students, opening the existing programs to System campuses, and developing study abroad scholarships for undergraduate students.

• Enhancing the library's collection of Chinese materials, especially of media, and making them available to classrooms System-wide through the CEAS Asian Media Initiative.

• Encouraging faculty at Chinese educational institutions to visit the UW for periods of several weeks to a year for research, informational exchange, and teaching.

• Providing a mechanism for UW faculty and students to network with each other on China-related projects through the China Initiative website and the Wisconsin China Initiative Student Branch, an umbrella organization of all of the China-related student groups at the UW.

Promote Study of the Chinese Language in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin China Initiative recognizes that facility with the Chinese language is key to future success in relations between Wisconsin and China. Therefore, we are promoting study of the Chinese language by:

1. - Working with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), the Language Institute, the School of Education, the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature, and the Center for East Asia Studies are working to developing a permanent Chinese language teacher training program for Wisconsin kindergarten through high school teachers. So far an emergency certification program, funded with a three-year federal grant, has produced two cohorts of licensable teachers; the first licensed teachers begin teaching in middle and high schools fall 2010. The challenge now is to make this temporary program permanent with a combination of more teacher education faculty and staff, more support for the cooperating teachers who mentor student teachers in their own classroom, and a grant program to assist school boards in hiring the newly produced teachers.

2. - The UW-Madison has also begun providing support for the Wisconsin Association of Chinese Language Teachers, a organization that holds an annual Chinese language teacher conference and simultaneous speech contest for students to promote interest in studying Chinese at the middle and high school levels. This project is run in collaboration with the Confucius Institute at the UW-Platteville and other Center campuses.

Develop and Sustain Peer Relationships in China

The Wisconsin China Initiative, from its inception, has made the creation and sustaining of peer-level relationships with Chinese institutions its top priority. These efforts take place in the following areas:

• Developing more study abroad and faculty exchange opportunities with a wide range of institutions

• Assisting UW faculty and departments in developing collaborative research and teaching projects with Chinese institutions

• Assisting WUN in developing and running electronic research and teaching projects incorporating the WUN partners in China
  

• Assisting UW administrators in their visits to China, and helping host Chinese administrators when they visit Wisconsin

• Assisting Wisconsin DPI and the Wisconsin Department of Commerce with the sister province relationship with Heilongjiang

• Establishing a role in the Global Manufacturing Center project spearheaded by Tsinghua University, Shenzhen campus, for UW departments and Wisconsin manufacturers