2:36 p.m., Sept. 16, 2009----The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board have announced that David Pong, professor of history and director of the East Asian Studies Program at the University of Delaware, has received a 2009-10 Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and to serve as a consultant for the reform of the higher education system.

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The Fulbright awards have been given to approximately 1,100 faculty and professionals to travel abroad and are given on the basis of academic or professional achievement as well as demonstrated leadership potential.

During his stay, Pong will work part time with the Hong Kong General Education Initiative, which consists of six other academic members and university administrators from the United States. The group will study general education issues, especially the transition of the region's seven universities from three-year colleges to four-year colleges in 2012.

Pong said the group is known as the “Team Fulbright” and he was invited to participate because, as chairperson of the Department of History from 1992-98 and director of East Asian Studies at UD, he has had experience in creating UD's general education initiatives, including interdisciplinary courses, experiential learning, a capstone course, clusters of courses within the context of study abroad program and others. The University of Delaware has made “significant strides in the area of general education,” Pong said.

Part of Team Fulbright's responsibilities includes visiting all of Hong Kong's universities and possibly universities in nearby Macau and parts of Southern China. He also will give talks on his research.

In addition, Pong will serve as a Fulbright Scholar in Residence at the Hong Kong American Center and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar, assigned to the Centre for East Asian Studies, the Department of History and the Office of University General Education at CUHK. He will teach a course on modern Chinese history and is affiliated with Chung Chi College, CUHK's oldest college.

“Being located in a region rich in resources for the study of modern Chinese history,” Pong said, “I shall also conduct scholarly research in whatever time is available. I am currently engaged in a book-length study of industrial development and labor relations in the late 19th- and early 20th-century China -- a large project that will last many years.”

Pong has bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London and teaches courses on Asian civilization and China at UD. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Modern China and has written numerous articles and books on modern China.

Article by Sue Moncure