{"id":1884,"date":"2012-06-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/blogtest\/preparing-students-to-meet-the-challenges-of-a-global-society\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T10:35:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:35:50","slug":"preparing-students-to-meet-the-challenges-of-a-global-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/preparing-students-to-meet-the-challenges-of-a-global-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing students to meet the challenges of a global society"},"content":{"rendered":"
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During the past decade,\u00a0we\u00a0have increased\u00a0our\u00a0international\u00a0undergraduate and graduate\u00a0student\u00a0enrollment, expanded\u00a0our\u00a0study-abroad opportunities, developed\u00a0faculty and student exchanges and sought\u00a0research collaborations\u00a0with international\u00a0partners.<\/p>\n

Those efforts have resulted in many benefits for our students, faculty and staff, as well as\u00a0the middle Tennessee region.\u00a0 Here are just a few examples of our varied international outreach activities:<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0MTSU, through a competitive process, was granted in 2009 the prestigious Confucius Institute program by the\u00a0Hanban\u00a0Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing, China. This is a $500,000 grant program.\u00a0 We have received more than $300,000 in external grant funding for its operation.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0MTSU co-hosted an international conference on the teaching of math and sciences with Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou, China, attracting 50 Chinese and 50 American professors. A\u00a0$100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation was secured to fund this conference.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Just last year, the Tennessee Board of Regents established the Tennessee Center for Botanical Medicine Research at MTSU, a partnership with our university and China\u2019sGuanxi\u00a0Botanical Gardens. The collaboration will study how traditional Chinese herbs can be used\u00a0in the\u00a0development of\u00a0modern\u00a0pharmaceutical\u00a0treatments.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ten students and two professors from Â鶹ÊÓƵ recently went to Japan to assist our sister school in Fukushima cleanup and rebuild after last year\u2019s devastating earthquake and tsunami.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Next month, MTSU will lead a contingent of Murfreesboro children and their parents to China for a cultural exchange with sister schools, Hangzhou Normal University in Hangzhou and Beijing.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And, just a few weeks ago, a delegation of MTSU dance and jazz students returned from several Chinese cities where they performed as part of an ongoing cultural exchange between our University and our Chinese partnering universities.<\/p>\n

These enriching experiences are just a few of the many that have come\u00a0from\u00a0MTSU\u2019s work as a center for international study, understanding and exchange.<\/p>\n

Not only do these efforts expose our students to the broader world, they also bring international attention to our state and the Middle Tennessee region. This was reinforced earlier this year during my recent trip to Thailand, home to almost 500 MTSU graduates.<\/p>\n

During this visit, we established the first international affiliate of MTSU\u2019s alumni association. Our alumni in Thailand have risen to become leaders of government and industry in that country, all the while holding onto their affection and ties to our university.\u00a0<\/a>More than 200 of our alums gathered in Bangkok to initiate the\u00a0affiliate\u00a0and learn more about MTSU.<\/p>\n

I have seen first-hand the many benefits that come from the development of these global partnerships and I am proud of our university\u2019s work and results in forging these ties.<\/p>\n

These efforts are\u00a0helping make\u00a0international\u00a0awareness, knowledge and proficiency intrinsic to MTSU \u2013\u00a0which, in turn, better prepares our students for opportunities in the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the past decade,\u00a0we\u00a0have increased\u00a0our\u00a0international\u00a0undergraduate and graduate\u00a0student\u00a0enrollment, expanded\u00a0our\u00a0study-abroad opportunities, developed\u00a0faculty and student exchanges and sought\u00a0research collaborations\u00a0with international\u00a0partners. Those efforts have resulted in many benefits for our students, faculty and staff, as well as\u00a0the middle Tennessee region.\u00a0 Here are just a few examples of our varied international outreach activities: \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0MTSU, through a competitive process, was granted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3041,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1884\/revisions\/3041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}