President Speert (right) and Hao Shuchen, president of Shandong Economic University

William Paterson University has signed an agreement with Shandong Economic University that will facilitate recruitment of prospective Chinese students into the Cotsakos College of Business and other colleges at William Paterson University. The agreement was signed when a delegation led by President Hao Shuchen from Shandong Economic University visited the William Paterson campus in November 2008.

This most recent agreement joins several other cooperative agreements with prestigious Chinese universities. A recent twelve-day trip to several cities in China by representatives from William Paterson University was part of an ongoing focus on China designed to facilitate student and faculty exchange between institutions and recruit Chinese students to William Paterson. The delegation led by University President Arnold Speert, including Sam Basu, dean of the Cotsakos College of Business; Raymond Torres-Santos, dean of the College of the Arts and Communication; Haiyang Chen, managing director of University’s Global Financial Services Institute (GFSI); and Aliyah Xu, assistant director for China initiatives at GFSI, visited eleven major Chinese universities and institutions.

"By meeting with leaders of Chinese universities on their campuses and ours, we are building on our long and proud history of partnering with universities around the world to develop programs that benefit students in a wide range of disciplines," says President Speert. "Participating in a global environment is the future for our graduates. Creating opportunities for our students to interact with Chinese students establishes an environment that encourages mutual respect."

“Our major objective was to set up strategic alliances with these institutions,” reports Basu. “We are interested in establishing exchange programs for faculty and students, creating opportunities for joint research, and recruiting Chinese students into our undergraduate and graduate programs.”

In addition to the university and business visits, faculty and students from William Paterson’s music department successfully performed three concerts in China as part of a cultural exchange program. Jazz and percussion ensembles performed at the Nanjing Arts Institute in Nanjing, and Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou.

The cooperative exchange agreements signed during the trip were between William Paterson and Shandong Economic University, Zhijiang College of Zhejiang University of Technology, and Sun Yat-Sen University. In addition, five Chinese students were recruited to attend William Paterson during the upcoming spring semester; and forty students signed on for the 2009 hands-on non-degree training program scheduled to begin this spring on William Paterson campus.

“Students and faculty will benefit significantly from the cooperative programs,” Chen reports. “With this initiative we are trying to increase international educational activities for our students and faculty, and recruit Chinese students into our programs.”