A recent study by the Institute of International Education (www.iie.org) shows that Calvin College ranks high nationally for "number of students who study abroad." In fact, in its category of "master's institutions" Calvin was ranked fifth for the number of students who studied abroad in 1996-97, up sharply from tenth the year prior. The school had 397 students study abroad in 96-97 – almost 10% of its total enrollment.

Those numbers are likely to go up now that Calvin has approved a new Semester in China program, slated to begin in the fall of 1999.

The program will fall under the auspices of Calvin's Frank Roberts, the school's director of off-campus programs. The China program director will be Kurt Selles, a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt in chinese studies and church history. Selles, whose grandparents were missionaries in China from 1926-1949, has lived in China and Taiwan for a total of 10 years as a teacher at University of Peking and Beijing Institute of technology.

In fact, the new Calvin College Semester in China program will be affiliated with the Beijing Institute of Technology and Calvin students will live in the international dorm there.

Calvin already has semester-long study programs in Britain, Spain, Hungary, Honduras and New Mexico. It also offers numerous foreign study programs during Interim, a three-week term each January during which students take but one class.

Calvin presently offers a minor in Japanese studies and courses in Chinese studies. In January 1999 Calvin professor Larry Herzberg will travel to China for a three-week Calvin Interim class. Herzberg and a group of Calvin students made national news during the summer of 1989 when they were caught in China during the Tianammen Square uprisings. Calvin professor Peter Szto will bring a Calvin group to China for a class on "documenting social change" in summer 1999.

Check out http://www.calvin.edu/academic/off-campus/ for the off-campus programs website