Ten Years of Partnership

Initial contacts between representatives of Appalachian State University, North Carolina and Fudan University started from 1995 when then dean of John A. Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University, Chancellor Ken Peacock, then dean of the college of business, led a small delegation to Fudan University. In return, the former President Emeritus of Fudan Madam Xie Xide visited Appalachian in 1996. Two months later after Madam Xie's visit to Appalachian, the Chancellor of Appalachian, Dr. Francis Borkowski, led a delegation of ASU administration to Fudan to attend a professional development seminar. Several excellent business students from ASU were invited to join the delegation for the seminar. Those students were the first group of Holland Fellows.

From then on, Fudan has sponsored seminars for Appalachian’s Holland Fellows delegation each year.  Beginning from 1999 and due to the generous financial support of Mr. Jensan Jen, Fudan was able to send twelve students each year from the School of Management and the School of Economics as Holland Fellows to the United States of America to visit Appalachian State University for non-degree exchange studies for a period of 15 days.

The purpose of the program is to provide students from both universities, who are potential business leaders the opportunity to have face-to-face contact, conduct joint studies and to learn each other's traditions and culture. The program has been quite successful, with students from both universities benefiting tremendously. They not only learn how to communicate and cooperate within and among study groups throughout the course of the program, but also develop personal friendships and a better understanding of each other's culture and tradition. The two-way student exchange has been carried out consecutively for 6 years except in the year 2003 when the program was postponed because of SARS.