CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The University of Illinois will sign an agreement Oct. 25 with Zhejiang University in China, establishing a cooperative education “3+2” program in the fields of agricultural and biological engineering, and food sciences and human nutrition, both within the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.
The agreement allows Chinese students to spend their first three years at Zhejiang University, one of the top five universities in China, and their last two years at the U. of I. Upon completion of the program, students will be awarded a bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang and a master’s degree from Illinois.
Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, the capital city of the Zhejiang province, is just over 100 miles southwest of Shanghai, and is among its nation’s oldest universities, having been founded in 1897. Today, Zhejiang is home to just under 40,000 students, with an engineering school often considered among the top two or three in China.
A 10-person delegation, led by Wu Ping, vice president for international affairs at Zhejiang, will be at Illinois Oct. 25 to sign the memorandum of agreement establishing the collaboration. Similar 3+2 programs in other engineering programs offered by the two universities are also under discussion, with plans under way to start programs in mechanical science and engineering, and in civil and environmental engineering, as of the beginning of the 2011-12 academic year.
The U. of I. has become increasingly engaged with Zhejiang University in a variety of research and cooperative education endeavors, including hosting Zhejiang faculty as participants in the Freeman Fellows program administered by Illinois’ Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies.
This program provides funding for young Chinese faculty in the social sciences and humanities to spend a year in residence at Illinois as visiting scholars, as well as cooperative research in alternative energy sources and technologies.
The two universities also have been engaged in collaborative research in the areas of biofuels and sustainable energy, at Zhejiang University’s Institute for Thermal Power Engineering.
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