BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Five Illinois Wesleyan students and one faculty member have been awarded the ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellows grant, and will travel to China for several weeks this summer for a research project. It is the fourth time the University has received the ASIANetwork grant. Other recipients have taken students to India, Indonesia and China.
The nearly $22,000 grant will allow the group to study aspects of city planning in China that took place in the years immediately following the Chinese Revolution in 1949 by traveling to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.
“In the late 1940s, there was widespread hunger, a high percentage of illiteracy, homelessness, and inadequate sanitation and medical care,” said Thomas Lutze, associate professor and chair of the History Department at Illinois Wesleyan, who will lead the students in the study. The students will each take on an aspect of city planning that was implemented after the Revolution.