Beijing Polytechnic College students visit Delaware Valley University
Credit: Delaware Valley University. DelVal President Dr. Maria Gallo with a group of 50 students from Beijing Polytechnic College.
Delaware Valley University is exploring a potential new partnership with Beijing Polytechnic College and the Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture that could lead to new internship opportunities for DelVal students, while bringing more international students to DelVal’s campus.
A group of 50 students from the Beijing Polytechnic College visited Delaware Valley University’s main campus Monday, Dec. 19 as part of the potential new partnership. DelVal President Dr. Maria Gallo and university administrators welcomed the visitors. The students attended a presentation about DelVal and received information about the international student admission process.
Dr. Chris Tipping, interim dean of the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, provided a tour of the agricultural facilities. After the agriculture tour, the students had lunch at The Market and then, went on a tour of the full campus.
Representatives from Beijing Polytechnic College, the Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture and DelVal met in November to discuss three potential partnership opportunities.
One opportunity would be creating a unique 2+3+2 program that could be part of the Beijing municipal government’s “High-Level Technical Talent Cultivation” program. Qualified Chinese students who are interested in agriculture would be identified while completing their final two years of high school in China. They would then continue at Beijing Polytechnic College or, Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture for three years. Students would enroll at DelVal for their final two years to earn their bachelor’s degrees.
“This is a model that would be a win-win for all parties, especially the students selected to be part of this program,” said Dr. Gallo. “The education program of these students while in China would specifically prepare them for study at DelVal, and thus, result in a high success and degree completion rate.”
The second potential opportunity would be internships for DelVal students. Since 2009, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education has actively sought American college students to participate in their Teaching Exploration and Chinese Hospitality (TEACH) program. As part of this initiative, DelVal students would have the opportunity to intern at local schools in Beijing as English teaching assistants. The Chinese government would incur the expenses and local Chinese families would host the interns.
“This opportunity directly supports DelVal’s Experience360 Program,” said Dr. Ben Rusiloski, interim vice president for academic affairs. “The hands-on experiences our students would obtain are consistent with the goal and purpose of our experiential learning requirements.”
The third initiative is the Chinese government sponsored Student-Centered Holistic Orientation of Learning Professional Development (SCHOOL) program for Chinese educators. The program would allow DelVal faculty in agriculture and the sciences to travel to China to provide professional development instruction for local educators.
“DelVal has a wealth of faculty experts in both key academic areas who are eager to share their knowledge with other educators,” said Dr. Tipping. “Not only would our faculty receive competitive compensation for participating, but their travel and living expenses would also be taken care of.”
The University is aiming to increase its international student population. One immediate goal will be enrolling qualified Chinese students who visited the campus on Monday.
“It was exciting to have these enthusiastic students on our campus,” said Art Goon, vice president for enrollment management. “They genuinely seemed interested in our agriculture and environmental sciences facilities and academic programs. I hope to see some of these students eventually enroll.”