Dean Honggang Yang, Ph.D., of NSU’s Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS) and the Department of Family Therapy hosted a delegation from Beijing Normal University (BNU) earlier this year. The delegation included Xiaoyi Fang, Ph.D., Yangzi-River Professor and Director, Institute of Developmental Psychology, Xiuyun Lin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, and Linyuan Deng, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. The Department of Family Therapy (DFT) is chaired by Tommie Boyd, Ph.D.
The visit was part of the ongoing collaboration between NSU and BNU. The foundation for this collaboration began during the summers of 2011 and 2012 when SHSS faculty John Miller, Ph.D., led a group of SHSS students to Beijing, China as part of a course he was teaching. Prior to joining the faculty at SHSS, Miller, as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, participated in collaborative research, and developed clinical training strategies in the field of marital and family therapy in China from 2009-10. While there, he worked at BNU with several members of the visiting delegation. 
This past summer, Ralph Rogers, Ph.D., NSU’s Provost joined Yang, Boyd, Miller, Jim Hibel, Ph.D. and Christine Ajayi, Ph.D., attended the Second Bi-Annual International MFT Conference at BNU. Yang and Boyd were on the organizing committee and eight DFT graduate students presented. The 2014 conference experienced an increase of 100% in international participants. The growth for marriage and family therapy has promoted NSU’s work with BNU and it’s anticipated that future collaborations will include clinical training and research projects and student and faculty exchanges.