Luther College receives a grant to send eight to China

Six Luther College students and two Luther College faculty will travel to Hetou, China next week, thanks to a $45,290 grant from the ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellows Program.

The faculty team consists of Luther associate professor of Chinese Hongmei Yu and Luther assistant director of the Center for Sustainable Communities Stratis Giannakouros.  Student participants are Luther seniors Travis Houle, Sophia Ristau and Kaitlyn Fillmore, Luther juniors John Rosenwinkel and James Foster and Luther sophomore Rachel Johnson.

The group will spend four weeks on field research for their collaborative projects on the impact of urbanization in China.  Students will gather information in the form of interviews, focus groups and observations with migrant workers, villagers and local officials for research topics including urban planning, river population, migrant workers and education.

Hetou is a village of 4,000 in Tianjin Province, a connecting zone between urban and rural areas in China.  The urbanization project in Hetou started in 2007. However, this project was halted in 2008, due to the global financial crisis, and left Hetou half-urbanized.  That means Hetou embodies the advantages and disadvantages of the urbanization project that has changed the once agriculture-based community.

After the trip to China, students will write a research paper that compiles their research and summarizes their findings. They will also present recommendations for the future of Hetou. They will present their project findings during the ASIANetwork Conference, to Luther College at the annual Research Symposium in May 2016, and in a photo essay in Luther's alumni magazine.