HU seeks partnerships in China

President Sherilyn Emberton

HUNTINGTON, Ind. On March 14, President Sherilyn R. Emberton, along with Dr. Luke Fetters, associate professor of ministry and missions, and Shoshannah McKinney, the international admissions counselor, will head to China for Spring Break and seek possible partnerships with various schools.

"We are going to talk with them about the possibilities of us establishing a stronger relationship," Emberton said, "which may be recruiting some of the students to come here."

According to Emberton, this will be her first time visiting China. She will be mainly staying in the southern cities of China for a week. While there, she will talk to leaders from middle schools, universities and institutions.

"We will be visiting Zhuhai No.1 middle school, Doumen No.1 Middle school China-Hong Kong English school, a private IELTS (International English Language Testing System) prep school called Global IELTS, UIC (United International College) and Jilin University," McKinney explained.

As for partnerships with middle schools, McKinney shared about the potential of working with both teachers and students.

In Doumen No.1 middle school, they will be talking about HU's international program for students and the Master of Education program to teachers. Meanwhile, they will explore the possibility of giving teachers more training and more education by providing various programs such as a TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification program.

In Zhuhai No.1 middle school, they are seeking a partnership for this summer. Students will possibly have an English summer camp locally which opens a door for them to come to Huntington in the future.

Private institution like Global IELTS have also showed interests in doing a summer camp on HU's campus and sending students to HU in the future.

In China-Hong Kong English school, they tried to work on a foundational where students who graduate from that middle school will be able to do their first year in China and complete their degrees at Huntington later. They expressed their wishes of launching the Foundation year program this fall.

In addition, HU will talk about starting an exchange student program with universities like UIC and Jilin University's Zhuhai campus.

"I am excited that Dr. Emberton is coming on the trip," Fetters said. "One school in particular that we are going to visit, we've been talking with them for couple years, and they said, 'Well, bring your leaders.' And that's the reason why Dr. Emberton is coming with us. "

After a one-week visit, McKinney will spend a few days up north in Shandong province and Beijing city to work on more partnerships while Emberton and Fetters head back to the States.