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Indiana State University President Lloyd W. Benjamin III thanks Liu Hui (right) following an impromptu performance in the Condit House parlor. The performance followed the signing of an exchange agreement between ISU and Shenyang Conservatory in China. Looking on at left is Bai Wei, chairman of the board of trustees for Shenyang Conservatory and Gaston Fernandez, executive director of ISU's International Affairs Center.

ISU President Lloyd W. Benjamin III and Shenyang Conservatory’s Bai Wei signed the agreement Wednesday during a brief ceremony on the ISU campus. The agreement provides formal opportunities for visits, exchanges and training of faculty, administrative personnel and students; conferences; coordinated and joint research projects; joint studies; and special short-term academic programs.

“(The agreement) will enable our universities, particularly in the discipline of music, to enter into some more in-depth planning about how we can facilitate both student and faculty exchanges,” Benjamin said.

Bai Wei, through an interpreter, said the agreement will be mutually beneficial.

“For the performing and music education, we can stress the exchanges between the faculty and the students,” he said. “So you see, the different backgrounds of cultures and the traditions there is more for us to help each other learn from each other.”

Following Wednesday’s signing ceremony, Liu Hui, a vice president at Shenyang and a professor of singing, agreed to treat the small gathering to an impromptu musical performance on a piano in the parlor of the Condit House, which serves as office for the ISU president.

The relationship between the two schools has grown over the past three years since Brian Kilp, a member of ISU’s music faculty, traveled to China for lectures and performances on an international travel grant. In February, a delegation from Shenyang Conservatory visited ISU, and in March, a delegation from ISU traveled to China.

“There’s so much potential for the way our two schools can work together,” said Todd Sullivan, chair of the Department of Music at Indiana State and a member of ISU’s delegation to China. “We have a real strong music education program, and they are very, very interested in the way we prepare teachers. We have a strong music business program, nationally if not internationally known, and Shenyang Conservatory wants, with our assistance, to help establish the first music business program in China.”

Gaston Fernandez, executive director of the Center for International Affairs, said ISU students have already seen benefits from the informal relationship between the two schools.

“We have faculty from Shenyang coming here and working with our students of music and teaching them about Chinese musical traditions and helping our students to better understand the global context of their discipline,” he said.

Fernandez said a program is in the works to offer a program where Chinese students begin their musical training with two years at Shenyang Conservatory and finish their degree with two years at ISU.

Shenyang Conservatory, the only music institution of high learning in northeast China, was founded in 1939, during World War II. The school was established with the goal of training musicians and composers to provide patriotic music to help assist and inspire the soldiers in their war effort against the invading Japanese. Shenyang Conservatory has about 5,000 students on four different campuses.

Contact:
Gaston Fernandez, executive director, International Affairs Center,
(812) 237-4391 or ascfern@isugw.indstate.edu

ISU, Shenyang officials sign international agreement