Kean University has a diverse campus. To add to the diversity, many international students come to study in Union on Kean University’s main campus. Beginning in 2013, Kean started receiving its first groups of Wenzhou-Kean University students and began sending Union campus students to the Wenzhou-Kean campus.
The partnership between Zhejiang Province and the State of New Jersey began over thirty year ago laying the foundation for a partnership between the City of Wenzhou and Union County. This lead to the regular exchange of ideas that helped establish what is now known as Wenzhou-Kean University. The official signing ceremony between Wenzhou University and Kean University was held on May 8, 2006.
After a successful application process, the Ministry of Education for the People’s Republic of China approved the establishment of Wenzhou-Kean University (in preparation).
Wenzhou-Kean University (WKU) was officially launched in August 2012 with the enrollment of 204 freshmen. The English-only speaking campus in China became a first for any public University in the United States. These students were enrolled in three majors and were housed and took classes temporarily at Wenzhou University, one of Kean’s partners in China. Today, Wenzhou-Kean University has almost 1,500 students within six majors that students can get a bachelor’s degree in. These majors now include English, graphic design, computer science, marketing, international business, finance and accounting.
By July 2013, 112 of the original cohort ventured to the Union campus for a six-week English immersion program. The English Immersion 2013 program became the first towards a regular exchange of students between the two campuses. In addition to attending classes to enhance their conversational English, these students were able to travel the region and learn about American culture.
Although students began to arrive in August 2012, construction of the WKU campus began with a ground-breaking ceremony in March 2012. The 494-acre WKU campus would open with three buildings in October 2013. These three buildings were a residence hall, a dining hall and General Education Hall, an academic building that is almost three times the size of the Maxine and Jack Lane Center for Academic Success on the Union campus.
When the campus opened in 2013, 240 new freshmen were added to the campus and the enrollment of WKU rose to over 400. For the fall 2014 semester, WKU enrolled an additional 430 freshmen. Wenzhou-Kean continues to grow at a rapid pace. In the near future, the campus will be looking forward to providing students a completed indoor sports court, a Global School of Business, a School of Architecture and Design, a School of Computer Science, a student center and library, and a completed admissions and administration building.
For more information about Wenzhou-Kean University, please visit their website at http://www.wku.edu.cn.
