Chi-Hsuan Catterson's passion for the Chinese language helped begin a trend at the University of North Georgia (UNG).
Born and raised in Taiwan, Catterson started UNG's Chinese language program when she came to the university in 2006 on a part-time basis, becoming a full-time employee the next year. Driven by student interest, Chinese quickly grew from being a minor to a major. In 2011, UNG became a Chinese Language Flagship, one of just a few schools in the country to offer the program.
The Chinese Language Flagship allows students to study the language for four years at UNG, then have a capstone year abroad. Catterson, now a senior lecturer of Chinese at UNG, serves as the academic director of the flagship program.
Some of her friends joked that she was doubling the population of Chinese people in Dahlonega, Georgia, when she moved there. But what she found flew in the face of that stereotype.
"I was surprised that Chinese has been received so well," Catterson said. "We found hard-working students who wanted to know this language and were fascinated by it."
Catterson believes learning Chinese opens doors for students to go abroad and learn a different way to think while experiencing another culture.
"The more we understand each other as nations, as people, the better we are able to get along," Catterson said.
A turning point for Catterson came in 2008 when she started the first Summer Language Institute (SLI) at UNG, helping students take Chinese courses in a condensed format during the summer. Having students come in with zero knowledge of the language and convincing them they could be successful was a rewarding process.
"I had never done that before. With a lot of people's support, somehow they trusted I could do it. And as I started doing it, I learned that I could do more with them. I learned how to revise my curriculum," Catterson said. "I learned how students learn, how students think and what kind of struggles they have encountered."
Catterson earned a pair of master's degrees — in English as a second language and then East Asian language and literature — from the University of Hawaii and taught there before teaching briefly at Boston University. Catterson taught Chinese at a prep school in Hawaii for eight years before coming to UNG.
Even when she had 10 to 12 students in some of her early Chinese classes, Catterson said she always had strong support from Dr. Brian Mann, head of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages; Dr. Christopher Jespersen, dean of the College of Arts and Letters.
"I feel I'm blessed to work in an environment where institutional support is always very strong," Catterson said.
She said UNG has gained a more international flavor in her decade-plus at the school.
"You look around the campus and you see more and more Chinese people, more and more Asian people," Catterson said. "It's just unbelievable. It's amazing. It can only be good."
Catterson said the study abroad programs remain a cornerstone of the Chinese program at UNG.
"We can't just keep ourselves focused on this community only anymore," Catterson said. "If we want our students to be competitive globally, we have to find a way to let them go out."
