June 1, 2012 morning, the university of Tennessee dean Susan Martin led a delegation to visit SEU, had a meeting about relevant terms of co-building Confucius Institute. President Hong Yi and Dean Martin signed “Southeast University and University of Tennessee Confucius Institute Performance agreement”, the Universites planed to hold a opening cremony of Confucius Institute In Knoxville, Tennessee early next year, Tennessee university Professor, “Thousand Person Plan” sholar Shilun Xiao will be appointed as first president of Confucius Institute.
Previously, delegation of University of Tennessee went to Beijing to paid a special visit to China Hanban, and signed “ China Hanban/ Headquarters and University of Tennessee co-build Confucius Institute Agreement”. The Confucius institute of the university of Tennessee is 82th Confucius institute in America, and also the first institute approved by China Hanban a bit earlier before United state council pubished the announce against Confucius institute.
Confucius Institute of the University of Tennessee will widly develop Chinese language and culture teaching activities according to the demend of students studying Chinese in middle and big shools in east Tennessee. In the meanwhile, due to the the two universities’ similar subjects settings and Personnel scale, establishment of Confucius Institute will futher promote the overall real cooperation and communication between the two.