Note: Due to inclement weather concerns, Friday afternoon’s inaugural event at the International House has been moved to the first floor galleria in Hodges Library.
UT’s Confucius Institute will celebrate its opening with an inauguration ceremony and gala stage show on Friday, April 12. The campus and Knoxville community are invited to both events.
The Confucius Institute is a collaborative effort between the university; HANBAN, a Chinese Ministry of Education subsidiary in Beijing; and Southeast University in Nanjing, China. Geography Professor Shih-Lung Shaw is the director of the Confucius Institute.
A nonprofit center, the institute will serve the campus and community by offering for-credit and noncredit Chinese language courses, sponsoring cultural activities, helping local schools provide more education about China, facilitating exchange activities, and serving as a bridge between China and the state of Tennessee.
Inauguration festivities will include a ribbon cutting at 3:30 p.m. at the International House, 1623 Melrose Avenue, where the Confucius Institute office is located. Campus officials and administrators from Southeast University will attend. Refreshments will be served at the site.
A stage show featuring performers from UT and traditional Chinese performers from Southeast University will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Alumni Memorial Building’s Cox Auditorium. Local performers will include Bill Snyder, a former UT chancellor who has been the house organist at the Historic Tennessee Theatre since 1979; WUOT employee Todd Steed and his bluegrass band; faculty and students from the UT Jazz Program; and others.
Both events are free and open to the public. Free parking will be available in Staff Lot 9 on Phillip Fulmer Way.
UT spent more than two years laying the groundwork to open the Confucius Institute. There are now Confucius Institutes at more than 300 colleges in more than 100 countries, including about seventy institutions in the United States.
For more information about the Confucius Institute, e-mail confucius@utk.edu or call 865-974-5753.
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)