Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE- The University of Wisconsin-Platteville hosted a group of 12 visitors from South-Central University for Nationalities, Wuhan, China, who participated in a language and cultural immersion program. This was the fourth group of scholars that UWP has hosted in collaboration with SCUN and the Confucius Institute.

The group stayed for a month over the summer in Southwest Hall on the UWP campus. While in Wisconsin, the visitors attended English conversation and improvement classes, lectures about cultural differences and day-trips to various destinations to highlight some cultural examples.

After a lecture about religions in America, the visitors attended a local wedding ceremony. The group also toured a farm and enjoyed an Amish meal near Darlington. "These trips were pretty special instances," said Mike Dalecki, UWP professor of sociology and director of the cultural and English language immersion program. "It's not often you can take 12 strangers to a wedding or stop by to visit an Amish community. I loved watching them learn first-hand about American culture."

The scholars from Wuhan also went to Madison, Dubuque, Iowa, Galena, Ill., Devil's Lake and toured Milwaukee for two days.

"Lots of people were very willing and generous with their time," added Dalecki. "We had faculty and staff volunteers to drive the vans, students to converse with the visitors during trips, all kinds of people helping. If we didn't have all these people, none of this would have ever happened. We plan a month of activities for visitors, but without all the people helping with logistics, it would be impossible."

For more information about the program, contact Dalecki at (608) 342-1807 or dalecki@uwplatt.edu.

Contact: Mike Dalecki, professor, UWP Department of Social Sciences, (608) 342-1807, dalecki@uwplatt.edu

Written by: Ian Clark, UWP Office of Public Relations, (608) 342-1194, clarki@uwplatt.edu