Inaugural ASAS–CAAV Asia Pacif ic Rim Conference Abstracts

128 Opportunities for international partnership andstudent exchange. C. Zhang*, University of Florida, Tallahassee, FL, USA.In an era of globalization, international cooperation in academic areas isreceiving ever-increasing attentions. Many American universities attempt toreach at least 25% or higher of their undergraduate students to have joineda study abroad program before graduation. In China, some top universities,including Zhejiang University and South China Agricultural University, havebeen organizing summer study abroad programs for a few years. To supportstudy abroad, the China Scholarship Council and the different levels of Chinesegovernment offer scholarships to PhD candidates, young faculty, and promisingpublic employees to study abroad also. In 2009, Chinese government fundedabout 18.6 thousand such scholarships, which accounted for about 10% of thetotal number of Chinese students that went abroad. Interestingly, it was foundthat some Chinese cannot find receiving schools even when they are funded.Some American student groups cannot make their trips because they do notmeet the minimum number size of making a group or for other reasons. Thereare many cases of misconnection in international cooperation. At this juncture,some nongovernment organizations, including ASAS, CAAV, and CAFÉ, canfill that gap by providing the necessary assistance, in particular the mechanismfor international partnership and student exchange. Already establishedactivities include assistance to strengthening the function of universityinternational program office with a focus on China program, promoting thebuilding of sister departments’ relationship with foreign universities, using anenterprise-university cooperation platform to promote academic exchange, andoffering information exchange through the internet.Key Words: opportunity, international partnership, student exchange59