PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education-International is partnering with Beijing University and East China Normal University to create the U.S.-China Future Leaders Program to develop close relationships among young leaders and improve mutual understanding and respect.

Twenty students from universities in the U.S. and China are participating in this two-month program.  For one month the students will live in China and for one month they will live in the U.S.

Nine of the participants attend U.S. universities including Penn, Johns Hopkins and Harvard.  Eleven participants from China are students who attend East China Normal, Fudan, Peking and Renmin universities.

“At a critical juncture in U.S.-China affairs, this program is an opportunity to promote the peaceful and prosperous co-existence of two nations whose relationship will define the global economic and political landscape in the 21st century,” Cheng Davis, vice dean for international programs and development at Penn GSE. 

The participants will attend a series of forums, interviews, lectures, meetings and seminars with business leaders, policy makers and academics.  Students will work together on a project to address a public-policy problem and then prepare a presentation about the issue.

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