Hanban provides a grant for the establishment of Confucius Institute at the University of Maryland

Project narrative

On November 17, 2004, the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) and University of Maryland signed an agreement to establish the Confucius Institute at the University of Maryland. As part of the agreement, Hanban is obligated to provide teaching materials, an annual fund, and numbers of Chinese instructors. The funds are dispersed through a local Bank of China account or other approved bank account created by the institute. The agreement has a 5-year validity and automatically renews at the end of every 5-year term. In 2004, University of Maryland and Nankai University (南开大学), the cooperating partner, signed a supplementary implementation agreement. Nankai University agreed to provide one or two visiting scholars annually, donate teaching materials, and receive student study groups. The Confucius Institute was officially established on November 17, 2004 and it began operations on March 8, 2005. It was the first Confucius Institute to be established in the United States. In 2015, Hanban provided a $900,000 USD grant to University of Maryland to finance the transformation of the Confucius Institute at the University of Maryland as a Model Confucius Institute. Specifically, the grant would have supported the 100% of the renovation budget to transform the Humphrey House at 8701 Adelphi Road, College Park, Maryland into the dedicated site of the Model Confucius Institute, as captured by Record ID#109884. The Confucius Institute ended in 2020.