TROY – Four professors from the People’s Republic of China are making their home in Troy for the next year as part of the 1-2-1 Sino-American Dual Degree Program.

That program, now a standard model in the United States for partnering with foreign universities, brings students to TROY for two years and returns them to their home institutions for a final year. At commencement, the students receive both a degree from Troy University and their home university.

The program also exchanges faculty members. Under the program, visiting professors spend up to a year at TROY, learn American teaching practices and expanding those horizons.

Currently, Ms. Ren Tianshu, Liaoning University of Petroleum and Chemical Technology; Ms. Sun Yizen, Xi’an University of Science and Technology; Ms. Feng Wei of Hubei University and Mr. Sun Qiang, Wuhan University of Technology, are getting a taste of American and American higher education.

“At TROY, I think what the teacher teaches is much easier to understand [than in China],” said Sun, a professor of computer science in her third year who is sitting in on computer classes here.

Although she admits the American textbooks are much thicker, she said in-class discussion intensifies the learning process.

“In China, students dislike asking questions in class,” she said. “They ask for help after class.”

Wei and Qiang agree the program structures and method of delivery are new to them.

Both have been teaching on the University level for more than 15 years.

“I feel it is helpful to have more freedom in the academic atmosphere,” Wei said. “At TROY, there are lots of interactions and teachers give some inspiration for how the knowledge can be used.”

Qiang said China’s system, that has teaching-level and separate research-level professors, was very structured and students are “fed” information.

“In [Assistant Professor Chuck]Thompson’s microeconomics class, he teaches and then asks the students ‘yes, no and how’,” he said.

Qiang is an associate professor of technology, economics and management at Wuhan, Wei is an associate professor in the Hubei’s department of tourism and management. Both universities are located in Wuhan, central China’s largest city.

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University Relations student writers Amanda MacDonald and Torie Hardee contributed to this story.