Dube said USC has gambled significantly in launching the new institute, announced only last May. USC is currently seeking its first Chinese-funded corporate academic chair for the Institute. The Institute will conduct a wide range of multi-disciplinary research in these general areas:
Popular culture exchanges, including internet, films, etc.
''We will try to understand the relationship in all its dimensions,'' he said.
The audience included two members of the local Chinese consulate staff and several special guests from China--exchange students who are currently enrolled at California State University, Long Beach.
Research will be the focal point of the new Institute's work, explained Dube, and it will be the cornerstone of its other activities. For example, research will feed development of new courses and new components to existing courses. ''We will fund case studies to plug into other courses,'' he said.
''We expect to hold public programs, too,'' commented Dube, in asking LBQA members to save the dates of April 20 and 21, 2007, for the Institute's first conference. Faculty will also train teachers, especially in the Chinese language, and offer professional development courses about China for lawyers and other professionals.
USC students will play a formal role in the new U.S.-China Institute, said Dube. For example, some will be sent to China to learn and observe, and will be given the opportunity to teach in local high schools about their experience, as a form of service learning. Others may produce material for the website, journals, and programs.
USC will capitalize on their many current faculty already working on China-related topics throughout the University but will also hire several new faculty specifically for the Institute. In fact, a search is currently underway to find the first Executive Director. Dube said he expects the Institute will occupy space currently available on campus, rather than building its own facility.
Several Chinese universities already have formal cooperative agreements with USC, he noted, so USC will incorporate those along with new Chinese university prospects, into the Institute's agenda.
The Institute is expected to require a $2 million annual operating budget. Not unexpectedly, fund-raising efforts are now being initiated.
After the mixer, Dube said, ''I thoroughly enjoyed it and wish we'd have had more time to work through the future of China-US ties. Yours is obviously a strong organization with informed and active members. I hope that we can continue to collaborate, perhaps in the impact of the 2008 Olympics. As far back as 2000, I was stunned by the faith evident in small investors in places such as Nandaihe (Hebei beach community), that investors motivated by the promise of the Olympics would redeem stalled housing and other building projects.''
