Lingnan Normal University (Zhanjiang City, China)
Lingnan Normal University (LNU), called Zhanjiang Normal University before 2014, is where many CSB and SJU students went to teach through the Maryknoll China Teachers Program (MCTP). The partnership between LNU and CSB+SJU began in 1998, when two CSB graduates volunteered to teach English there, Eleise Jones ’98 and Angela Anderson ’98. In 2000, two professors from LNU, Deng Yanyan and Shang Quanyu, came to CSB+SJU as visiting scholars. In addition, SJU graduate Kevin Clancy (’00), who was teaching English at LNU, helped create an interactive website that connected his students with Jeanne Cook and Don Turk’s at CSB and SJU. In January of 2002 and 2003, Clancy worked with the Asian Studies Learning Community (ASLC) to bring his students to CSB and SJU to meet their “cyberbuddies.”
In 2004, the partnership was strengthened as Richard Bohr, along with the SJU Hong Kong Alumni Chapter, worked to establish a Hong Kong/China May Term, in which students would study at LNU. An agreement was made between CSB, SJU and LNU to co-sponsor this study tour of South China’s Guangdong province along with MCTP. The first “Economic Development and Social Change in China” tour was led by Bohr in 2004. There, Bohr was given an honorary degree from LNU, making him the first American to receive this honor. The May 2005 Tour was expanded to include the Entrepreneurial Scholars Program (E-Scholars) to look at businesses in Hong Kong with the help of many SJU Alumni, especially Canning Fok ('75).
In 2008, our ten-year partnership was celebrated. LNU has sent their students to CSB and SJU, making this a reciprocal program.
