Chinese department celebrates thirtieth year

Author: Dean Atyia

This week marks the 30th anniversary of Middlebury's Chinese program, an occasion for which over 60 program alumni will return to campus for panels on current topics in Chinese studies. The week's symposium marks a high point for a program that has steadily gained momentum since its birth in 1976.

Thirty years ago, according to John Berninghausen, co-founder of the Chinese program and Truscott Professor of Chinese, "Chinese was considered an exotic language. Many people doubted that it would prosper in what was then a Eurocentric campus."

The conference will both celebrate the success of the program and address its future, with panels on topics ranging from business and current affairs to the environmental issues and actions in the People's Republic. Alumni from the past 30 years will attend the conference, and many will speak at the various panels.

The featured alumni speakers hail from all over the world and provide insight into how studying Chinese contributes to their daily lives, whether by speaking the language or having a base of knowledge that the professional world demands.

Thanks in part to the tenacity of Professor of Chinese History Nick Clifford, the College adopted a provisional Chinese program and recruited Berninghausen and Gregory Chiang in 1976 to occupy the one and a half positions allocated for the Chinese program. At that time, there were only eleven students taking the language.

"I remember sitting at freshman registration for hours only to leave without a single add card," Berninghausen commented. While the lack of freshman participation was due to a clerical error in the course catalogue - one in which Chinese was omitted altogether - it still provides an idea of how little attention the program received.

Berninghausen is no stranger to small classrooms, having been the only Chinese major of the 36,000 students during his time at the University of Minnesota.

"Chiang and I embraced the challenge of working towards building one of the best Chinese programs in the country, and we've come a long way," he said.

That is not to say the process was easy.

"I remember coming to Middlebury in 1994 when enrollment was down," said Associate Professor of Chinese Thomas Moran, now the head of the department. The program steadily regained its momentum, however, due to the determination of both students and professors.

Today, the Chinese program is nationally ranked as one of the best in the country. Professor Berninghausen attributed the success to the College's "outlook towards all languages."

"The College employs highly educated native speakers and highly proficient non-native speakers," he said. "All language professors are determined to send students abroad with the skills to speak the language."

Moran also praised the College for its encouragement of language.

"Studying a language at Middlebury means you are part of a community made up of hard-working students and dedicated professors," said Moran.

Students who study a language do so voluntarily because of the freedom of the College's academic distribution requirements, and the unique experience that the College offers in terms of learning a language.

"I decided to take Chinese because I wanted to do something challenging, and I felt that Middlebury would offer the best language experience possible," said Charlie Evans '08, a second year Chinese student. "Sure it's hard, but you can't do anything but get better." Many students share Evans' sentiment - Chinese enrollment is currently at 330 students, quite a leap from the original 11.

"I've taught at big universities where nobody cares about undergraduate education and professors don't teach languages," said Assisstant Professor of Chinese Du Hang.

"Dealing with the growing numbers will be somewhat of a challenge," Moran commented. "It's of utmost importance that we maintain the high level of personal contact that students have with one another and with their professors."

The administration is working on ways to deal with the rapid expansion of the program, which includes only six and a half positions for professors.

Still, the future of Chinese at the College promises great things.

"Just this year, the Board of Trustees approved a six-week graduate school program for Chinese, in addition to the prestigious Chinese summer language school," said Anna Sun, coordinator of the Chinese Language School. Moreover, the Board predicts Middlebury's Chinese school in Hangzhou, created three years ago, will become an international powerhouse of Chinese language within five years.