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students, faculty and staff come together
to live, learn, eat and sleep stand in
clearer relief than ever.
This year we are especially excited to
launch a new venture sponsored by the
Hassenfeld Family Foundation, longtime
supporters of the HNC. The program,
known as the Hassenfeld Social Enterprise
Fund, will provide select teams of
Chinese and international M.A. students
with the opportunity to create, launch,
run and eventually hand off projects
that use innovative measures to meet
pressing needs (see sidebar on page 71).
The seeds our students will sow through
the fund will bear fruit for years, even
decades, to come.
This June we will formally mark the
25th anniversary of the center’s first
graduating class. President Daniels and
his counterpart, Nanjing University
President Chen Jun, will lead our celebration
(see sidebar at right).
The event comes at the close of
a spring semester that will see the
welcoming of two Hopkins Scholars,
funded by the Benjamin and Rhea Yeung
Center for Collaborative China Studies
at JHU (see sidebar on page 69).
The Yeung Center, launched last year,
expands opportunities for scholars and
researchers across the university’s many
divisions to partner with Chinese organizations
in conducting cutting-edge
research. The Hopkins Scholars Program
will strengthen research ties between the
HNC and greater Johns Hopkins.
Sowing and reaping, reaping and
sowing: This is our year-in, year-out
work in the world of education. This
June, as we welcome Daniels to Nanjing
and join with our Nanjing University
partners to celebrate, we will reap the
rich and unique harvest of hearts and
minds that now see a world that is both
quite a bit smaller and unfathomably
larger than the one they had known
just a fall, winter and spring earlier. And
of course we will sow, as we always do,
the springtime seeds of curiosity and
possibility that are the heart and soul
of the HNC, and of all we do at SAIS
and JHU. n
Jason D. Patent is American co-director of
the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese
and American Studies.
70 SAISPHERE
HNC Celebrates 25 Years
The theme of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s 25th anniversary celebration,
to be held June 15–17 in Nanjing, will be “HNC: Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow.” Events will include a gathering of all past
co-directors (“yesterday”), the commencement ceremony (“today”),
and a summit where alumni and center leaders can discuss their
vision for the HNC’s next
25 years (“tomorrow”).
In honor of Kuang Yaming and
Steven Muller, the two visionary
university presidents who brought
the center to life in 1986, JHU President
Ronald Daniels and Nanjing
University President Chen Jun will
preside over the festivities.
Many graduates consider their
time at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center
a life-changing experience. After
25 years of commencement cer-
emonies and the awarding of more
than 2,000 certificates and master’s
degrees, the HNC community looks
forward to revisiting the notable
achievements of the center and its
many distinguished alumni.
“The 25th anniversary celebrations
will be a very special opportunity
for the big Hopkins-Nanjing
Center family to gather together and
share with each other the ways in
which the center has affected their
lives,” said Chinese Co-Director
Huang Chengfeng. Her American
counterpart, Jason D. Patent, added,
“China and the world have changed
so much over the past 25 years. The
gathering this June should celebrate
the hard work of this year’s graduates
and also help us sharpen our
vision for the center’s next quarter
century.”
Ma Yunxia N’87, a member of
HNC’s first graduating class and
a director at Deloitte in New York
City, sees the 25th anniversary gathering
as an opportunity to reconnect
with classmates, who have scattered
to the four corners of the globe and
to many different careers. “My life
certainly was affected significantly
by my time at the Hopkins-Nanjing
Then ...
... And Now
Center,” she said. “I want to see the next generation have the same opportunities
my classmates and I had to learn and to make lifelong friends across
cultures.”
—Patrick Cranley