The New Year will bring new faculty and research opportunity to Illinois Wesleyan University.

In November, IWU and Beijing Union University signed an agreement to hold faculty exchanges and collaborate on scholarly research, which IWU Provost and Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Green expects to begin this academic year.

As part of an IWU initiative funded by a 2009 grant from the Department of Education, the university has established partnerships with academic institutions in Asia. Thomas Lutze, IWU professor of history and co-director of the grant, said that BUU was particularly interested in planning faculty exchanges.

The agreement is between the IWU Asian Studies program and the newly opened Center for Chinese Studies Abroad at BUU, Green said.

“The new center at BUU examines how scholars in other countries perceive and research Chinese history and culture,” Green added.

Under the agreement, two or three faculty members from each university will be exchanged in order for them to engage in individual research, collaborative research and possibly to teach courses abroad.

BUU has already sent representatives to IWU to meet with members of the Asian Studies program.

The 2009 grant was requested in order to expand the Asian Studies program by adding a Chinese language component. The proposal also included funding for visiting scholars and creating institutional relationships with universities in Asia, Lutze said.

IWU also signed Memorandum of Understanding with Asian institutions including the International Rice Institute in the Philippines, Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou and Lingnan University in Hong Kong, he added.

Faculty will focus on research while on exchange, Green and Lutze see students benefiting from the collaboration of faculties.

“We are hopeful that some agreement will be worked out [for student exchanges],” Lutze said.

During the BUU delegation visit in November, Lutze was presented a Letter of Appointment as a Foreign Specialist in the BUU Center for Chinese Studies Abroad.

“I was extremely honored to have been presented with this distinction,” Lutze said.