Funded by the Lingnan Foundation, the Institute brought together eight freshmen from three liberal arts colleges, including Sun Yat-sen University's Boya College (Guangzhou), Bryn Mawr College (Pennsylvania) and Barnard College (New York) to discuss the current practices of liberal arts at SYSU and in the US. The Institute seeks to engage students from Boya College and students from American Liberal Arts Colleges to exchange and reflect their experiences of liberal arts education, and explore the scope for mutual learning from different liberal arts education models in both countries. This activity also aims to encourage, through hands-on experience, the pursuit of interdisciplinary research towards an understanding of the higher education practice.

        In the Institute, students were engaged in various activities: After Pecha Kucha presentations (you can view them online: http://www.youtube.com/user/SRI2010LAE#p/u) on their respective schools on the first day, they discussed their first-year experiences such as honor code, traditions in U.S. liberal arts colleges, differences between seminar and lecture courses, as well as those between Teaching-Assistants in the United States and Tutors at Boya College. They posed some pressing questions deduced from the research materials, including the relationship between socio-economic background and a liberal arts education, the cost of a liberal arts education, financial aids in higher education, and the rate of return to liberal arts education. The students were divided into two groups and finished short research papers on comparing the different practice and students experiences in liberal arts education in China and the US. One group primarily focused on the practicality of a liberal arts education, while the other group provided brief histories and primary sources. They raised critical questions and made suggestions for teaching and learning of liberal arts education in China.

        All students agreed that the Institute was a fruitful learning experience. They wrote in their reflective memos that the Institute helped them to understand more of liberal arts education both in the US and China. The comparative research also allowed students to, for example, "think and judge upon [their] own education critically, though [they] might not actually have the chance to change it", and reflect whether attending a liberal arts college would equip them to pursue what they like in the future. The discussions among students were lively throughout and it was clear that they could have continued usefully. The process of organizing the Institute also provided an important opportunity to communicate with Boya College and understand the current effort on liberal learning development in China.

A short video of the summer institute is available online:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SRI2010LAE