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Two new courses for business students interested in studying or working in China will be available in the spring semester, thanks to a two-year grant the Business Department received from the United States Department of Education last June. In addition, the grant has made new scholarships available for students interested in either spending a semester in China, or participating in a new summer study on “Doing Business in China,” which will include a two-week tour of Beijing and Shanghai in mid-June.

“Post-Mao Reform and Contemporary Culture in China” will be offered this spring by Qin Shao, professor of history, while Jia-Yan Mi, professor of Chinese will be teaching “Business Chinese for Beginners”—a course currently offered only to Spanish- and French-speaking students.

The grant is the brainchild of Linghui Tang, associate professor of international business and finance, who will teach “Doing Business in China.” Tang, who collaborated with Shao and Mi to submit a proposal for the grant last January, is co-directing the grant program with Shao.

While Tang explained that the “primary focus” of the first year of the grant is to develop the three courses, she noted that the grant also will be used to help make China more accessible to small New Jersey businesses.

For example, prior to leaving for the tour of China, her summer-session students will meet at the College for two weeks to conduct “market development research” for the New Jersey Business Development Center. After researching what products are offered by small businesses interested in doing business in China, the students will go to China and “assess what similar products are currently available in China and what the potential is for them to sell their product in China,” Tang said.

She added that “as a reflection of [the] program,” the school plans on hosting a symposium on doing business in China in spring 2012. Professors and students will recount their research and study experiences in China, and invitations will be extended to business people as well as interested students and faculty.

“In general we just want to promote, campus-wide, more students to be aware of China as an emergent economy and more students to study abroad in China,” Tang said. She noted that, in the past, the relative few students from the College who have chosen Asia for their overseas study have tended to opt for Japan or Thailand.

But Mi emphasized that there have already been “many success stories” at the College in regards to building student interest in China. He said that there are currently six students studying in Shanghai or Beijing.

Junior Maryan Escarfullet, who is currently studying at the China Studies Institute of Peking University in Beijing, is one such student. In an e-mail exchange from China, Escarfullet, a self-designed “Chinese Language and Culture Studies” and history double major, wrote enthusiastically about her experience.

“Every aspect of Chinese society is changing and in order to thoroughly understand the changes politically and socially that are taking place, I would recommend anyone take advantage of the opportunity to come and study in Beijing,” she wrote. “…You meet people from so many unique places working on amazing things — documentaries, volunteering, working or researching — that it changes your perspective and the way you view the country.”

Gary Bethea, a junior international studies major, is considering studying in China in the fall after visiting Beijing and Shanghai this summer with friends. Through e-mail, he recalled being surprised at how cosmopolitan the cities were. “You’ll hear five languages being spoken in every bar and there are loads of international college kids around,” he wrote.

Escarfullet and Bethea, who are not Chinese, represent a growing trend, according to Tang.

During an interview, she showed a photo of students at the Chinese Studies Institute. “You can see a lot of these students are not what we call ‘A.B.C.’ — American-born Chinese,” she noted. “They are very diverse … A lot of students not necessarily with any Chinese background are getting very interested.”

Tang added that, for the students who decide to study in China, internships in their particular field of interest will be readily available through vendors that specialize in student study-abroad experiences. She specifically mentioned the need of law firms and news agencies like CNN.

“Since China is growing so fast, they need the help … It’s not at all difficult to get placed,” she said.

According to Tang, both the scholarships and the new cultural instruction are being offered via the grant in hopes of reducing anxieties that might keep students from considering a trip to China.

“We’re going to use this program to show students both financially and psychologically that China is not that far away,” she said.