Collaborations

n the first donation of its kind, the Ameson Education and Culture Exchange Foundation made a significant contribution to a Chinese language learning program offered at Stanford University. On November 11, 2009 the Ameson Foundation and China Zhigong party signed an agreement to co-donate the money to Stanford University’s School of Education to help fund the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) masters program in Mandarin. The donation was approved and made official in December 2009.

The STEP program is a masters program that trains, prepares and cultivate teacher leaders to achieve high learning standards in diverse cultural settings. The program has special focuses, including the instruction of foreign languages. This donation will be used to help cover the necessary costs to start a program with STEP that trains teachers of Mandarin Chinese.

With the growing number of Chinese language programs at schools of all levels, especially in the California area, the need for these kinds of programs is continually increasing. Prof. Sean Zhang, Deputy Chairman of the Ameson Foundation, is pleased to be assisting in these kind of programs that exemplify the mission of the Ameson Foundation.
“We hope to make similar donations to other schools and be involved with such programs in the future.” Professor Sean Zhang
In addition to the donation, the Ameson Foundation is working with Stanford University on future cooperative programs. Prof. Zhang is enthusiastic to be able to work with one of the best universities in the United States on this and other programs. “It is an exciting time for the Ameson Foundation as we expand the number of universities we work with and bridge Mandarin programs to the U.S.,” says Prof. Zhang. “We hope to make similar donations to other schools and be involved with such programs in the future.”