SAS Launches the C.Y. Tung Program in Sino-U.S. Relations

April 2, 2009 - Semester at Sea, widely recognized for educating individuals for leadership, service, and success in shaping our interdependent world, has launched the C.Y. Tung Program in Sino-U.S. Relations in honor of C.Y Tung, who was instrumental in the founding of Semester at Sea. A ceremony to announce the program will be held aboard the MV Explorer campus today in Shanghai.

A historic milestone in Semester at Sea's 30-year engagement with China, the spring 2010 inaugural C.Y. Tung Program in Sino-U.S. Relations will be led by distinguished faculty in residence from the University of Virginia and Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

It will include rigorous courses on Chinese and American relations, history, culture, economics and diplomacy; visits from distinguished Chinese and American lecturers; excursions to educational and cultural sites in China; and scholarships for Chinese and American students.

Les McCabe, Institute for Shipboard Education and Semester at Sea president, said the new program underscores Semester at Sea's commitment to global understanding and international exploration.

"This program marks a new era by offering a timely and integrated study of China-one of the world's most influential global powers-and its relations with the United States," he said. "It will bring together students, scholars, and prominent figures to explore the history and cultures of China and the United States, and to consider how to ensure productive economic and diplomatic relationships between the two in the future."

Tung, a Chinese shipping magnate, founded the world's first global shipboard educational program in 1963. Initially called World Campus Afloat, and later The University of the Seven Seas, it is today recognized as Semester at Sea. Tung was a visionary global leader in the critical importance of multi-country study abroad and cross-cultural understanding among young people.

Forty-six years and nearly 100 voyages later, Semester at Sea has educated nearly 50,000 students in global affairs through multi-country global travel.

C.H. Tung, son of C.Y. Tung, is the vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee and was the first chief executive of Hong Kong. He states, "The relationship between China and the United States is one of the most important bilateral relationships facing the world today. A stable, mature China-U.S. relationship will benefit not only people on both sides of the Pacific but will have a positive impact on the world as well. Nearly four decades ago, my late father founded the program to promote cross-country, cross-cultural education. Today, I am glad to see that the C.Y. Tung Program in Sino-U.S. Relations will take shipboard education a step further to bring students and scholars of the two countries closer."

Since 1963, Semester at Sea has provided comparative, experiential learning in a distinctive shipboard environment. The 700 students on each semester's worldwide voyage represent more than 270 colleges and universities, and they travel with 32 faculty drawn from leading American and international universities.

The faculty specialize in one or more of the regions on the itinerary and teach approximately 85 courses that collectively encourage students to develop a comprehensive global perspective. The U.Va, the academic sponsor, provides full semester credit on each voyage.

U.Va. President John T. Casteen III said the China program supports the missions of both Semester at Sea and the University.

"Our collaboration with Semester at Sea has provided thousands of students from colleges and universities around the world with unique opportunities to experience and understand world cultures, political systems and literature," he said. "This program, whose creation is announced today, builds on Semester at Sea's successful educational mission and dovetails with the University's ongoing initiatives to expand its global footprint."

The curriculum will focus on the socio-cultural, policy and economic interactions between Chinese and Americans to prepare future leaders to better understand each other�s cultures and work together for mutual benefit. The program intends to build on, and to fulfill, program founder C.Y. Tung's original vision for shipboard education.

Faculty of the Inaugural Program

John W. Israel, professor emeritus with the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, is a widely recognized authority on Chinese history, focusing on education, politics and student movements of the 20th century. He is the author of Student Nationalism in China, 1927-1937(Stanford, 1966); Rebels and Bureaucrats: China's December 9ers(Berkeley, 1976), and Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution (Stanford, 1999). In the 1980s, he led several overland bicycle tours of Mongolia. He received his master's degree and Ph.D. from Harvard.

Shen Dingli is a professor of International Relations, the Executive Dean of the Institute of International Studies, and the Director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University. Dingli specializes in regional and international security, arms control and non-proliferation, security and nuclear relations between China and the United States, as well as in China's foreign and defense policies. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Fudan University in 1989, and he pursued his post-doctoral studies at Princeton University with a focus on arms control from 1989-1991. He was an Eisenhower Fellow in 1996 and advised the then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on strategic planning in 2002.

Jonathan Spence is Sterling Professor of History in the Department of History at Yale University. Spence teaches in the field of Chinese history from around 1600 to the present, and on Western images of China since the middle ages. His books include The Death of Woman Wang (1978); The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984); The Question of Hu (1987); Chinese Roundabout: Essays on History and Culture; The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980; The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds; and God's Chinese Son (1994). His critically acclaimed The Search for Modern China has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history. His recent works include a biography of Mao Zedong and Treason by the Book, exploring an intriguing episode of 18th-century history. Spence holds a bachelor's degree from Cambridge University and master's and doctoral degrees from Yale.

The C.Y. Tung Program on Sino-U.S. Relations at a Glance

• Includes an upper-level course team taught by U.S. and Chinese professors that will serve as a forum for constructive analysis of Chinese and American worldviews, economies, and diplomacy.
• Related courses on China and the U.S. taught by professors in disciplines including economics, history, language, religion, global commerce, and engineering.
• Two faculty-in-residence on each semester voyage (a total of four each year) will team-teach an advanced course. They will also offer specialized courses that support the C.Y. Tung Program.
• Specific field and travel programs, including in-port travel to special sites in China for the students and faculty.
• Distinguished lecturers from both China and the U.S. will join a voyage for approximately two weeks to engage students as well as the entire shipboard community of faculty and students in lectures and discussions on timely issues in contemporary Sino-U.S. relations.
• Five Chinese students will be selected as C.Y. Tung Program Scholars. Program scholars will receive scholarships covering the costs of tuition and room and board. The initial Chinese C.Y. Tung Scholars will be chosen from Fudan University. Five American students will be selected from the most prestigious American universities, including the University of Virginia. They will be selected on the basis of their academic interest in Sino-American studies, academic strength, intellectual curiosity, leadership capabilities, and ability to engage with the entire shipboard community.
• Cooperative effort between and among the finest universities in China and the United States, beginning with Fudan University and the University of Virginia.

History of Semester at Sea and China

Semester at Sea has a long-standing commitment to understanding Chinese culture, history, and society. In 1979, the program took the largest group ever of American students into mainland China. The fall 1991 voyage marked Semester at Sea�s first stopover in Shanghai Harbor. The port cities of Hong Kong, Qingdao, and Shanghai are frequent destinations on Semester at Sea itineraries and participants explore numerous educational sites throughout the vast country.

Recently, the fall 2008 voyage explored the academic theme of China at the Center: Then and Now. Len Schoppa, a professor in the U.Va. Department of Politics who served as the academic dean, led the shipboard community in the following inquiry: "In what ways did China, in its earlier period at the Center of Asia, shape the world? And how is it reshaping the world today as it returns to its position of prominence?" Listen and watch to an audio slideshow of Schoppa with a group of students in Beijing.

For more information, contact Lauren Heinz, director of communications for Semester at Sea, at 800-854-1095.