Chinese get invitation to Fergus Falls
Published Thursday, January 3, 2008
Artist rendering of the Kirkbride building on the RTC campus
Chinese educators could soon be visting Fergus Falls.
An invitation to Fergus Falls has been extended to delegates from the Hunan Province with hopes that seeing first hand the Minnesota Institute for Cross Cultural Studies (MICCS) will cement a longterm relationship between Fergus Falls and the Chinese.
An exact date has not been set, but the end of March or early April is anticipated, said Rick Anderson, spokesperson for Institute Acquisition Partners, developer of the project. About 10 formal invitations were sent last week as part of the process for the Chinese delegation to obtain visas.
Housed on the Regional Treatment Center/Kirkbride campus, MICCS will offer language immersion and business studies to Chinese and American students interested in international business and trade. The proposal was introduced to Fergus Falls by IAP last August.
Local representatives presented the plan in China last November, meeting with individual universities in Changsha (the capital city of Hunan, a province in south central China) and representatives from the city of Lodhi. A memorandum of understanding from Hunan Normal University resulted from the trip. Although non-binding, it means they are interested in establishing an relationship.
The visit to Fergus Falls “is going to be a whole different level,” Anderson said. Rather than a specific community, “representatives from the entire province will be coming to town.” Hunan province is located at the south bank of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River with a population of 62,090,000.
While the itinerary is still in the initial planning stages, banquets and tours of the community and RTC campus will be on the agenda.
“We’re going to put our best foot forward,” Anderson said.
Besides being informational, the visit will serve as a bridge-builder.
“They don’t really know us, and we don’t know them,” Anderson said.
Anderson anticipates the visitors spending a couple days in Fergus Falls, in addition to visiting other states.
No definite opening date has been set, but IAP’s project vision calls for construction starting in spring 2008 through 2013, with 1,000 university students attending each semester.
Faculty housing, 40 classrooms and gymnasium and kitchen renovation to the Kirkbride building are also part of the plan.
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