Timothy Murray, the director of the Society for Humanities at Cornell, said that the school hosted the conference to create an environment that encouraged intercultural discussions.

“What we try to do here is foster more of a multi-medial discursive environment,” Murray said. “For us, even the hospitality of the participants is extremely important because then you have more space for conversation after talks, but also you can build in more leisure time.”

Cornell’s annual international student statistics released by the International Students and Scholars Office are consistent with the national trend. The most recent report, published Oct. 8, 2012, stated that of the 119 foreign countries represented at Cornell, the largest geographic group during the Fall 2012 semester was China with 1,298 students. The second highest group was South Korea with 497. The report also showed that the number of Chinese students attending Cornell has more than doubled since 2007, with only 462 students registered that year.

The cultural conference titled “Memory: Comparative Approaches to Culture” — held at the A.D. White House — was the first hosted in the United States. ECNU held the inaugural conference in Shanghai in 2009. The format allowed for two speakers to make their presentations, followed by a question-and-answer period. The conference then took a short break where faculty members from Cornell and ECNU conversed with one another before reconvening for the next set of presentations.

Amy Villarejo, former department chair of the Performing and Media Arts at Cornell, said the increased interaction between peers helped build “genuine intellectual and scholarly bridges” among the two institutions.

“In the past conference, we were able to hear a lot of work presented but not really sit down and spend time at meals or other occasions,” Villarejo said. “One of our goals really was to have an interdisciplinary international exchange that allowed for a lot of time to ask each other questions, to clarify, and to engage in the work that cost national and cost disciplinary inquiry demands.”

American secondary institutions are using these types of events to help cater to an increasing number of Chinese students. The 2012 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange, released by the Institute of International Education, found that there was a six percent increase in international students attending U.S. colleges and universities in the 2011-12 academic year. Of those 764,495 students, 25.4 percent of them were Chinese, making China the number one place of origin.

Jimmy Wu, a junior economics and information science major at Cornell, is originally from Beijing, China. He said that he chose to attend Cornell because of the opportunities the university had to offer.

“When my family and I visited Cornell, it was something we thought would be a great place to study and a great place to concentrate on an undergraduate,” Wu said. “Cornell is very resourceful and there are a lot of career-oriented activities and organizations on campus. I really appreciate the opportunities this school has been able to offer.”

When coming to America, many Chinese students are aiming to earn the best education possible as shown by the increased enrollment at Ivy League schools. According to the 2012 Open Doors Report, Columbia University hosted the fifth largest amount of international students in the nation. Columbia had 2,254 Chinese students enrolled during the 2012 fall semester, equaling 32.1 percent of its international student population as stated in the latest International Student and Scholar Popular report.

At Cornell, China became the most represented foreign demographic on campus in 2009, one year after Cornell and East China’s humanities departments began their collaboration.

“Cornell has a long standing relationship with East China Normal University,” Vilarejo said. ”What’s new is this particular collaboration in humanities.”

The Humanities departments do not intend to make the cultural conference an annual event. However, both institutions plan to incorporate their partnership into their curriculums by developing joint masters programs and workshops, Murray said.