Duke Study in China has extended its application deadline for Spring 2008 until Nov. 5 because of low enrollment.
Last year, in its first year as a Spring program, study abroad in Kunming, a city in southwestern China, drew an enrollment of 15, said Dana Watson, Duke Study in China program coordinator.
This year, participation dropped to 12, with only three students from Duke.
"The reason that Duke has a low number is because of lack of promotion," said Carolyn Lee, director of the Chinese language program in the Department of Asian and African Languages and Literature. "This is a surprise to all of us, given how well the students received the program the past Spring."
Lee, however, said she is not worried about the program's future because she attributes this year's low participation to internal changes within the Chinese department.
"The coordinator for the program was newly promoted to the position, and I myself was on leave, so I certainly did not expect this to happen," she said. "There really is not a problem with enrollment. It's the lack of promotion. So the number one priority in our agenda is promotion this year."
The program in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, is hosted in conjunction with Washington University in St. Louis and Wesleyan University. For 25 years, it was offered in the Fall, but is now entering its second year in Spring semester due to scheduling needs, Lee said.
Although Fall is typically the most popular semester for students to study abroad-with Summer ranking second, and Spring coming in a distant third-Lee said she is not concerned about participation in the Spring semester.
"In our observation, it does not affect the enrollment much whether we have the program in the Fall or the Spring," she said. "There were needs from our partner universities, so we decided to give it a try, and now we are on a trial period to see how it will go."
Margaret Riley, associate dean and director of the Office of Study Abroad, wrote in an e-mail that Duke Study in China was the third most popular study abroad program in the Spring, after Oxford and Beaufort to Bermuda.
In addition to the Spring program in Kunming, the department also offers a two-month Summer program in Beijing.
Watson said the Summer program is much more popular than the Spring program, with about 80 students participating this past summer. Lee attributed the difference in Summer and Spring enrollment mainly to financial and academic scheduling reasons.
Both Lee and Watson, however, said they are confident Kunming offers a unique experience.
"Other universities like Princeton and Harvard already have programs in Beijing," Watson said. "Duke is unique in the sense that it offers a program in Kunming, which allows students to see a different aspect of China, to meet more cultural minorities."
Andy Cunningham, a senior double majoring in International Comparative Studies and AALL with a concentration in Chinese, spoke highly of his experience in Kunming last Spring.
"You are in a community that includes almost all of the 54 ethnic minorities in China and you experience one of the last areas of China that hasn't been modernized and Westernized," he said. "You become engaged and excited in a part of China, immersed as a student, a citizen and for me, in my host family, as a son and a brother."
Fourteen percent of AALL majors with a Chinese concentration and 46 percent of Chinese minors have studied abroad in China, Riley said.
Noting a growing interest in Chinese across the United States due to China's economic development and increased political stability, Lee estimated that about half of the students in Chinese language classes at Duke are non-native speakers.
For some, studying abroad can make this curiosity more than just an academic interest.
"Rather than an abstract concept, my understanding of China has become a personal connection, a global interest with a personal connection," Cunningham said.
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