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CSUN’s China Institute Awards Faculty Development Grants

Cal State Northridge’s China Institute has awarded three development grants to CSUN faculty for the 2009-2010 academic year, funding research in China.

“We have four major goals in providing the grants,” said Justine Zhixin Su, director of CSUN’s China Institute. “[They are] friendship, understanding, exchange and collaboration between CSUN and China. We want to promote collaborative projects for both faculty and students.”

The grants were awarded to Robert Gustafson, Yi Cai and Barry Cleveland.

Department of Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA) chair Robert Gustafson will visit Shanghai Normal University (SHNU) next month to develop CTVA student projects related to the Shanghai 2010 World Expo, an audio-visual-live performance spectacular opening May 1, 2010.

The Shanghai World Expo will feature student work by CTVA, music and theatre majors, as well as student work from the Xie Jin Film and TV Art College of SHNU.

“It expands the precedent set by our Departments of Theatre and Music and their ongoing student exchanges from SHNU,” Gustafson said. “The CTVA students at the Expo would serve as ambassadors of CTVA/CSUN through a myriad of conversations at the Expo throughout their stay.”

Gustafson will collaborate on this project with Dean Zhao of the Xie Jin Film and TV Art College, SHNU; Steven Weathers, SHNU faculty member; and Yong “Leon” Li, a CSUN visiting scholar and chief director of Program Creation and Research Center, Shanghai Media Group. The project will be funded by an Associated Students grant.

The second recipient of a faculty development grant is Yi Cai from the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Cai’s proposed project, “Value Orientation and Internet Usage among Chinese Consumers: A Structural Equation Model Investigation,” examines the impact of Chinese consumers’ values on their Internet usage and online shopping behavior.

The project is part of a U.S.-China comparative study on consumer values and behavior, which will be funded by academic and professional organizations. The grant also will support Cai’s travel to Beijing, China in winter 2009-2010 to finalize the data collection and analysis with the co-investigator, and conference expenses important for the dispersion of the project’s results.

The third faculty development grant has been awarded to theatre instructor Barry Cleveland, who is visiting Shanghai Normal University in early summer 2010 with his wife, Annie O. Cleveland, a Fulbright Scholar teaching in the Department of Theatre and Drama at National Taiwan University in Taipei for the 2009-2010 academic year.

The Clevelands will spearhead the CSUN Department of Theatre’s involvement in the Shanghai World Expo. They may also visit Nanjing University of the Performing Arts, if the China Institute establishes a relationship with the institution.

The Clevelands’ engagement with faculty and students will include workshops on “Lighting and Sound Production,” “Developing New Technologies Collaborating with Engineering Faculty and Students,” “Integrating Microcomputer Technology into the Production Process,” and “Computer Aided Design for Costume and Makeup Design.”

Cal State Northridge established the China Institute in 1982. The institute aims to promote better understanding of the Chinese culture and to strengthen friendship between the American and Chinese people. For more than 20 years, it has played host to hundreds of Chinese scholars and has been influential in arranging dozens of educational and cultural exchange programs between China and the United States.

For more information about the institute, visit its Web site at www.csunchinainstitute.org.