Ambassador Chang-Bloch students at the USCET’s Summer Institute graduation lunch. PHOTO COURTESY USCET.
The U.S.-China Education Trust provides China’s future leaders with resources to learn about U.S. society in the context of the political, cultural, and economic forces that have given rise to the United States and its values.
The U.S.-China Education Trust (USCET) is a program of the F. Y. Chang Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1998 by Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch, the first Asian-American to be appointed U.S. ambassador to Nepal (in 1989). The foundation, established to commemorate Chang Fu-yun, the first Chinese graduate of Harvard Law School (1917), supports subsequent generations of China’s Harvard Law graduates. USCET, the foundation’s largest program, supports activities in China and in the United States designed to promote U.S.-China relations.
USCET provides China’s scholars, professionals, and future leaders with resources to understand U.S. society in the context of the political, cultural, and economic forces that have given rise to the United States and its values. USCET projects are aimed at building confidence, basic understanding, and trust between China and the United States through support for U.S. studies programs at academic and policy institutions in China. Thirty-three Chinese institutions are affiliated with USCET through its American Studies Network (ASN), which provides a platform for members in China to communicate and share ideas..
The trust sponsors the Congressional Practicum, its first initiative in China, which includes elections seminars, training sessions, and lectures focused on teaching Chinese professionals, officials, and students about the U.S. legislative and political process through the use of hands-on-training, case studies, and interactive exchanges between Chinese and U.S. experts. USCET also runs media programs that explore the role of a free press and free speech in a free society and provides resources so that media professionals and students from both the United States and China might learn from each other. Its flagship Journalist-in-Residence program sends Pulitzer Prize winners to campuses across China. Other endeavors include the Financial Media Institute, a certificate program for undergraduate and graduate journalism students; symposia on international economics; fellowship programs; and the Greenberg/Starr Scholarships, which provide funding for poor Chinese students to attend universities in China.
USCET is a nonprofit organization founded with funding from the Starr Foundation, established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance entrepreneur and philanthropist, and with contributions from other organizations.
USCET successfully completed its inaugural session of the All China Summer Institute for the Study of the United States. From 5 July 5 to 2 August 2008 twelve Chinese professors from ten universities in China were invited to attend the institute to study American history and politics (in Washington D.C.) and American society and culture (with travels to Kansas City; Reno, Nevada; and San Francisco). And in October 2008 the USCET, in partnership with its American Studies Network and supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, published for the first time in English the All-China American Studies Directory: An Overview of American Studies in China, edited by the USCET founder Julia Bloch. The directory lists over thirty institutions offering American studies in China and provides detailed information about each institution’s programs, resources, faculty, course work, and mission.
Further Reading
Starr Foundation. (2008). Retrieved September 9, 2008, from http://www.starrfoundation.org/index.html
US-China Education Trust. (2008). Retrieved September 9, 2008, from http://www.uscet.net////about/index.cfm
Source: Gauthier, Chris. (2009). U.S.-China Education Trust. In Linsun Cheng, et al. (Eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, pp. 2378–2379. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing.
U.S.-China Education Trust (Zh?ng-M?i Jiàoyù J?j?n ??????)|Zh?ng-M?i Jiàoyù J?j?n ?????? (U.S.-China Education Trust)
