Carleton officially announced the opening of the new National Capital Confucius Institute for Language, Culture and Business in partnership with Confucius Institute Headquarters in China, Jan. 24.
The new institute at Carleton will open in the fall, according to John Osborne, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and chair of the institute’s steering committee.
The Confucius Institute is a not-for-profit educational program created through the partnership between Carleton and the Confucius Institute Headquarters in China. The program, which focuses on the language, culture and business of China, comes at no additional cost to students.
Funding comes from the Confucius Institute Headquarters, said Carleton’s vice-president (academic) and provost Peter Ricketts. Some of the costs they cover include sending over professors from their own university to teach at Carleton, he said.
“The program that will be held at the Confucius Institute will be a huge opportunity for students to learn about China, to learn through language and learning about culture,” Ricketts said.
He said he hopes students will become more confident in doing exchanges with China “for more than two weeks” as a result of taking the courses offered by the institute.
“I think it’s a great thing and exactly what we need . . . [it’s] a step in the right direction,” said Dallas Walldie, a fourth-year political science student who recently went on an exchange to China and said he hopes to go back again.
Although this program is about the students, Ricketts said he wants “it to be more about language, and to build a relationship between Canada and China”
The main goal of the institute is to further “strengthen the ties between these two countries . . . [and] to pave the way for students to break down barriers,” said Ottawa mayor Jim Watson.
Building a relationship between these two countries in a time of globalization was continually stressed throughout the evening.
“China and Chinese people have played an important role in the development of our country . . . many Canadians have taken strong personal interest in China [and] I hope that the Confucius Institute will serve as an important means to better interact with China,” Osborne said.
Zhang Lanchun, the People’s Republic of China’s embassy minister and counsellor of education, said learning about the language and culture of China plays a direct part in strengthening the relationship between China and Canada.
“It’s through language [that] we experience and learn our different culture; through this we get to know each other . . . I am certain that with the Confucius Institute, the relationship between our two countries will get better,” he said.
The institute, which has been in discussion for the last 18 months, is a perfect fit for Carleton, Ricketts said.
“It is indeed most appropriate that there be a Confucius Institute in Canada’s capital city.”
He then quoted Confucius himself: “Study as if you were never to master it, as if in fear of losing it — that is what Carleton is all about.”
