By John Sember
Founded in 1998 by Ron Anton, S.J., The Beijing Center (TBC) is the only Jesuit center of higher education in Mainland China continuing the tradition of Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci, in fostering mutual understanding between China and other cultures through cultural exchange, education, and research.
Starting as a collaborative program among 26 AJCU schools, TBC offers semester and summer education and intern abroad programs, provides comprehensive support for faculty-led programming, and houses a renowned research library.
As opportunities to study in neighboring Asian countries and other locations throughout China open up, The Beijing Center has worked to create programs that fulfill the values integral to Jesuit universities.
TBC offers short-term, tailored education tours through ChinaContact programs in order to meet the needs of university partners. Faculty work with ChinaContact to create programs ranging from two weeks to two months, specifically designed for their classes.
Students spending a semester abroad at TBC have the option of boarding with a local undergraduate Chinese student who also shares an interest in cultural exchange and friendship. Roommate pairs often end up sharing more than a living space: They spend weekends and holidays together, traveling in China, and meeting each other’s families. They share long nights in the library, prepping for exams and doing homework. They dine, celebrate, and navigate the tribulations of a demanding semester of study and exploration together.
Semester-long coursework is rigorous and all credits are transferable, ensuring that students are able to graduate on time. Semester students are not required to have studied Chinese before. However, they are required to enroll in Mandarin classes to help them accomplish basic tasks like shopping or ordering meals, as well as to help them to engage with the community around them.
Additionally, TBC offers semester and summer internship opportunities for students to work at embassies, start-ups, media agencies and other organizations suited to their interests and career goals. Interns are required to partake in career development workshops and networking events to boost their professional soft skills. At TBC, China is the classroom. Students are not just encouraged, but expected to spend time outside the library.
After about a week in China, students participating in the semester-long programs are coaxed from any newly found comfort zone in Beijing and led on a two-week long academic excursion to either Yunnan Province or throughout Northern China, along a portion of the Silk Road route.
Approximately 80 percent of TBC students are visiting China for the first time. The excursions are intended to immerse students in parts of China they might not otherwise seek out. They are exposed to key historical sites, the country’s diverse linguistic dialects and aspects of life outside of China’s metropolitan cities. Before and during the trips, students must do research on excursion sites and present their findings.
Back in Beijing, students are expected to participate in service-learning activities. As men and women for others, they’ve volunteered with disadvantaged youth, worked as English tutors, and helped renovate classrooms in the Beijing suburbs.
While students spend a significant amount of time learning from experiences outside the classroom, they’re aided by the trove of resources available at The Anton Library, home to more than 27,000 books about China in English—a collection valuable to scholars advanced in their careers who visit TBC to teach or to conduct research. TBC regularly advises and supports research by Chinese and visiting scholars, hosts conferences and serves as a liaison between Western academic institutions and Chinese universities.
The Beijing Center also publishes research. For example, scholars affiliated with TBC recently worked to translate several of Ricci’s letters and published the revised translations in a 2019 compilation, Matteo Ricci: Letters from China. A Revised English Translation with Commentary, available through The Beijing Center Press.
Ron Anton, S.J. (center), currently rector of the Jesuit Community and senior advisor for Jesuit identity in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, presides at a Mass to open Jesuit Heritage Month. Anton founded The Beijing Center in 1998. Photo courtesy of Georgetown University.
The letters offer an intimate view of Ricci’s relationships in China that are not reflected in his scholarly works, further amplifying the value he placed on forging personal bonds with the people around him as he shared Western academic and philosophical teachings.
Ricci came to Beijing in 1601. Like TBC students today, he and his companions studied the Chinese language and culture and used that knowledge to engage in the academic life of the day. These people were great adventurers and showed great courage, humility, and respect for what they found in China. Ricci found a particularly close friendship with Xu Guangqi, who taught him the Chinese way of life. In turn, Ricci shared his knowledge of the West.
Despite barriers presented by the political and global environment, experiences at The Beijing Center have prompted alumni to return to China after graduating from college to join programs like the Peace Corps or pursue master’s degrees. About 12 percent of alumni from TBC went on to live in Asia, according to a 2017 survey.
Others have returned to their home universities to pursue majors and minors in Chinese or Asian studies. The same survey showed that about 32 percent of alumni went on to use Mandarin at their jobs post-graduation, with over half of them speaking above a beginner level.
As an intellectual apostolate of the Chinese Province, The Beijing Center is committed to serving as a hub of international Jesuit higher education. Following the example Ricci laid out over 400 years ago, students, professionals and advanced scholars at TBC carry on that tradition, sharing their intellectual pursuits and extending their friendship to the international community.
John Sember is an alumnus of The Beijing Center from 2011 and is now its associate director of Marketing.
The featured cover photo (above) is courtesy of the University of San Francisco.