Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Pin Ni, President of Wangxiang American Corporation, signed a new agreement on Aug. 3 that will extend the partnership between the City of Chicago and Wanxiang to support “Study Abroad” program in China for students at Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

The new agreement will cover three years of summer study sessions in China for CPS high school students from 2017 to 2019. Wanxiang will provide a grant for $225,000, plus all the costs in China. Approximately a total of 72 students will benefit from the program—those selected will travel to China and study Chinese on the campus of Hangzhou Wanxiang Polytechnic in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and also have the opportunity to visit Beijing and Shanghai.

The Confucius Insitute in Chicago (CIC) and CPS have provided Chinese study abroad programs for CPS students who are learning Chinese for 10 consecutive years. The initial funding (2007-2011) was a grant from the US Department of State (NSLI-Y), which benefited 107 students.  

Wanxiang America Corporation in Chicago and Wanxiang Group in China provided the funding from 2012-2016, which benefited 106 students.

The program is highly effective and very well received. Some of the participating students of the previous two programs went to top notch universities such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford and University of Chicago; some received Gates Millennium Scholarship; and some were accepted into US Department of State’s NSLI-Y (National Security Language Initiative for Youth). Many of them continued to take Chinese in college. 

Over a period of 10 consecutive years, CIC, with the generous support of our sponsors, has taken a total of 285 students to summer immersion programs in China.