Miami, January 12, 2016 – Confucius Institute (CI) at Miami Dade College (MDC) recently won the 2015 Confucius Institute of the Year award at the 10th annual Global Confucius Institute Conference in Shanghai, China.
This award is offered by Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) through a global competition among 500 CIs located in 134 countries. Only five CIs in the United States have received this prestigious award at the conference.
“We are delighted to see the rapid growth of the CI at MDC in the past five years, and the success of the CI is captured in this prestigious award,” said Dr. Lenore Rodicio, Provost for Academic and Student Affairs at MDC and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Confucius Institute. “This recognition also reflects our College’s strong commitment to global engagement for our students and the community. We congratulate the CI and expect the future to bring even more opportunities.”
CI at MDC was recognized with this award due to its more than five-year quality Chinese language and culture programming as well as outreach efforts for MDC and the South Florida community. According to Hanban, CI-MDC “made great efforts to meet the university’s needs” by offering Mandarin classes and study-abroad opportunities in China, supporting MDC’s Miami International Film Festival and other college cultural events, promoting Chinese language learning in local K-12 schools, and facilitating training of Chinese language teachers in metro Miami area.
“We are thrilled by this award as a milestone for the CI at MDC. It provides a great momentum for our future growth, as we are opening doors for our students with multilingual and multicultural skills for future success,” said Dr. Xuejun (Jim) Yu, Director of Confucius Institute and China Initiatives at MDC.
Inaugurated in April 2010, in partnership with China’s Jiangsu Normal University and Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) in Beijing, CI-MDC is the only one of two CIs in the U.S. that is located in a community college. It aims to promote international education, cross-cultural understanding, global citizenship and life-long learning through its Chinese language, and cultural programs.
For more info about CI-MDC, visit www.mdc.edu/confucius.