Modern Chinese Higher Education in a Global Perspective

A Symposium on Modern Chinese Higher Education in a Global Perspective & the 150th Anniversary of Tengchow College (登州文会馆)

Sponsored by Shandong University and the Harvard-Yenching Institute

Background: The historical origin of the present Shandong University has a close tie with Tengchow College （文会馆）. In Autumn of 1864, the American Presbyterian missionaries Calvin Mateer and his wife established a 6-year boarding school in Tengchow, Shandong (now called Penglai蓬莱), which later developed into a 12-year high school in 1873.  It was renamed 文会馆 in Chinese in January 1877 and in 1884 it was approved and recognized as a college by its mission board and renamed itself as “Tengchow College”. In 1904, Tengchow College moved to Weixian, Shandong and became Shantung Union College (Science and Arts) of Shantung Protestant University with the merger of Guang De Shu Yuan (广德书院) which had been established by the English Baptist Mission. In 1917, it moved again to Jinan and developed into the well-known Cheeloo University(齐鲁大学）, one of the 16 Christian universities in China in 1949 (13 Protestant and 3 Catholic universities respectively).

In the nationwide adjustment of colleges and departments in 1950, all the majors of Cheeloo University were transferred and incorporated into other universities with its Medical College being the main part of Shantung Medical College (Shantung Medical University). In 2001, Shantung Medical University joined Shandong University, and thus Cheeloo University turned into one of the predecessors of Shandong University and its campus also became a part of the present Shandong University.

Prompted and initiated by the historian Prof. Zhang Kaiyuan, the 1^st Conference on the History of Chinese Christian Universities was held at Central China Normal University in 1989, and after that similar conferences and workshops were also held in Chengdu, Nanjing, Jinan, Hongkong, Taiwan, and the United States and so on, which contributed to the in-depth studies of Christian universities and east-west cultural exchange, modernization of education, modernization of China, social change and cultural transformation and related subjects, and as a result, an abundance of academic achievements were made and published.

Prof. Elizabeth J. Perry, Director of Harvard-Yenching Institute, organized a workshop on Chinese Christian Universities at Harvard University in June 2013 and put forward the idea that Chinese Christian Universities are actually “an experiment of the Globalization of Higher Education”, which is a very inspiring idea and provides a new perspective to rethink Chinese Christian colleges. The present symposium is to continue the discussion under this perspective to explore the historical experience of the cross-country and cross-cultural educational practice and their successes and failures of Chinese Christian universities. It also aims to compare them with the development of Christian universities and modern higher education in other Asian countries, which may provide reference for the internalization of higher education of China today.

Panel Topics:

1. Study of Chinese Christian Universities and Modern Higher Education
2. Internationalization of Chinese Christian Universities: Relationship with World Missionary Movement
3. Interaction between Internationalization and Localization of Chinese Christian Universities
4. Case Studies of Sino-Foreign Cooperation in the Educational Practice of Chinese Christian Universities
5. Study of Campus Cultures of Chinese Christian Universities
6. Comparative Studies of the Systems of Chinese Christian Universities and Domestic Public and Private Universities
7. Comparative Studies of Chinese and East and South Asian Christian Universities
8. History of Tengchow College and Cheeloo University
9. Internationalization of Modern Chinese Public and Private Universities
10. Related Topics on Modern Chinese Higher Education