Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) is one of the early universities to begin intercultural communication education and research. As early as 1994 Steve Kulich was teaching classes in the Overseas Training Department a full course in “Intercultural Communication” to orient scholars for going abroad as well as to provide IC training to English language learners seeking improve their job prospects and effectiveness in domestic or international companies. In 1995, Zhang Hongling and Steve Kulich began to work together on intercultural topics as she finished her PhD on an intercultural approach to foreign language teaching. In 1998 they organized the first IC classes in the College of Journ alism and Communication. In 2000, the “IC Theory & Practice” course became a public elective course for all SISU post-graduates, and in 2002, Prof. Kulich was invited to start a Master of Arts program in IC under the “Culture” Direction of the College of English. That became an independent MA major in “Intercultural Communication” (IC) in 2005, offering first six, and now eight to ten courses annually. In 2007, the College of Journalism and Communication was authorized to grant Master Degrees of intercultural communication.
On September 23, 2006, SISU established the first institutional-level intercultural communication research center (perhaps the first in the nation at that level). It concurrently sponsored the first Symposium on International Training Research, inviting 10 renowned scholars from China and abroad to present their approaches and suggestions for doing quality intercultural research. In 2010, in addition to co-hosting two other IC-related conferences, SII co-sponsored “2010 Sino-German Intercultural Communication Disciplinary Development Symposium” with Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, with 12 German experts and 4 American experts, as well as over 100 scholars from domestic and foreign renowned universities and research organizations, attending the conference. They reviewed and summarized the development on the discipline of intercultural communication [including intercultural linguistics/foreign language teaching, intercultural communication, intercultural management, and intercultural education and training]. Moreover, in view of the discipline characteristics and its development in China, the scholars proposed the strategic goal and plan for the disciplinary development of IC.
In 2010, the department of English first began offering doctoral courses on intercultural communication and admitting PhD candidates specializing in IC from the country. In 2011, SII (including those doctoral students) and Sino-Foreign Language Training, Teaching Materials & Methods Research Center co-sponsored a symposium on intercultural training, with over 80 teachers from universities nation-wide attending. This provides evidence that not only has intercultural communication, as an independent discipline, developed rapidly in China, but, has flourished in SISU. Now with over 184 English graduates who majored in IC, 6 Communication graduates who majored in IC, and 5 IC doctoral candidates, the training of new IC talents both for education and society is well underway. As the national Ministry of Education (2011) has just listed intercultural research, translation, and comparative literature as a joint first-level discipline, SISU aims to continue to play a role in developing the intercultural discipline and its education and research contributions.
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