Graduate philosophy students from two Chinese universities will gain a window on Western thought at Calvin and Hope colleges thanks to a grant to Calvin from the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia.
The $12,000 grant will allow four graduate students from Peking University and Tsinghua University to learn western philosophy. Two of the students will study at Calvin College and two at Hope College during the 2004-2005 school year.
Calvin professor of philosophy Kelly Clark (above) will facilitate the program. He is a frequent visitor to Asia, having taught numerous seminars and courses there, and also has hosted many Asian visiting professors at Calvin. He says this new program will be a boon for the Chinese and a plus for West Michigan.
"Chinese education is playing a big catch-up game," he says. "The universities were all shut down during the Cultural Revolution. It's been very slow, especially in the humanities, to catch up. And part of catching up is learning about the west."
The visiting students - who qualify for the opportunity through a test and interview - will live with host families and study in the philosophy departments of their host colleges. This work is important for cultural broadening and philosophical development.
Calvin has welcomed four Chinese and one Indonesian graduate student prior to this year, funded by donations from department members, outside donors and money from the $800,000 Freeman Foundation grant to Calvin's Asian Studies program. The new grant allows the program to expand to other colleges, something Clark says is necessary.
Indeed he says that in the future he'd like to have 20 colleges hosting 40 Chinese students a year in the U.S.
Such an ambitious goal has been made more attainable thanks to good groundwork laid by Clark and other Calvin colleagues nearly a decade ago. Calvin's philosophy department began looking for an entrée into China in the early 90s. And when Clark met a professor from Xiamen University while on sabbatical in Scotland, he saw the opportunity for an exchange.
"I sent some e-mails and three months later (former philosophy professor) John Hare and I were over there offering seminars to grad students," Clark recalls.
Since that initial excursion in 1998, Calvin has sent professors to Xiamen University and welcomed their professors here on a yearly basis.
"Our philosophy department has had more direct exposure to China than probably any other school our size in the country," says Daniel Bays, director of Calvin's Asian Studies program. 
In 2004, Calvin's visiting scholar program will shift its partnership to Peking University, widely regarded as the premiere university in China. At Peking they plan to soon start teaching the philosophy of religion for the first time, so the new relationship with Calvin will allow them to see first-hand how to teach such a course.