Students produce magazine about Cornell – in Mandarin

mandarin book cover
Provided
The cover of "About Cornell,” a publication written in Mandarin by students in a Chinese reading and writing course.

To celebrate Cornell’s sesquicentennial, students in the course CHIN 2209 are compiling their Mandarin compositions about the university into a magazine, “About Cornell, Special Edition in Celebration of Cornell's 150th Anniversary." It will be sold at the Cornell Store later this spring.

CHIN 2209 is an intermediate reading and writing course for students of Chinese heritage and is taught by senior lecturer Weiqing Su George and teaching associate Li Xu of the Department of Asian Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Approximately 40 students took the class in fall 2014, and each contributed to the project. After students wrote pieces about Cornell for assignments throughout the semester, the professors chose one composition from each of the students. The students, who then received feedback from the professor on their selected piece, went through a round of editing before submitting their final drafts to be included in the publication.

The pieces, which range from two to three pages each, center on themes ranging from Cornell’s weather and food to its history and famous alums.

Shen Ning ’15 and James Qiu ’15 served as the main editors, compiling all of the final submissions together and executing the publication’s concept and design.

Qiu said he was delighted to participate in a project that gave back to Cornell, while Ning said that it made her appreciate being at Cornell more. “We’re so busy with our daily lives that sometimes we don’t take the time to appreciate the history behind Cornell and the little things that make it so great,” Ning said.

The publication is dedicated to Hu Shih, Cornell Class of 1914, who was the Republic of China’s ambassador to the United States from 1938 to 1942.

The magazine is expected to be released around Charter Day, and profits from the publication will go to funding future projects for the course.

Agnes Shin ‘18 is a communications assistant for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Media Contact

Joe Schwartz