Minor in Chinese

Austin Price, 2016

                                                                   Austin with Lili Ren

Mason Senior Austin Price, a conflict analysis and resolution Major and Chinese Minor, won the First Prize of the Jiangsu Cup Chinese Language Speech Contest on Sunday, November 1, 2015, held at George Washington University for the Greater D.C. Region American College Students who are learning Chinese. 16 finalists representing the American University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, University of Maryland, University of Virginia, College of Williams and Mary, Old Dominion University participated in this final round of the contest on the site, which consists of a pre-prepared speech, a knowledge test on the Chinese province Jiangsu, and an instant answer session on a popup question. Austin handled all the three components of the contest exceedingly well and outperformed the other contestants. This is the first time a Mason Chinese learning student won the first prize in a similar contest.    

Mr. Austin Price took his first Chinese course in the spring of 2013 here at George Mason, CHIN 110, with Instructor Xu Wang, and earned an “A+” for that course. During the summer of 2013 he attended the Summer Language Intensive Program at California State University of San Bernardino with support from a Project Global Officer Scholarship. In the spring of 2013 he returned to Mason and took CHIN 300 with Instructor Peiling Zhang. During the summer of 2014 he attended Georgia Tech’s LBAT Chinese Program with support from a Project Global Officer Scholarship. Georgia Tech’s Program was hosted at Shanghai Jiaotong University for six weeks, and a hotel in Qingdao for two weeks. During the Fall Semester of 2014 he studied at CET Academic Program’s Beijing Chinese Language Intensive Program. This program was hosted at the Beijing Institute of Education. During this time he was funded by a Boren Scholarship. During the Spring of 2015 he studied at CET Academic Program’s Harbin Chinese Language Intensive Program. This program was hosted at the Harbin Institute of Technology. During this time he was funded by a Boren Scholarship. During the Spring of 2015 he studied with Embry-Riddle University’s Beijing Chinese Language Program, which was hosted at Central Nationalities University (中央民族大学) with support from a Project Global Officer Scholarship. Congratulations to Austin who is currently taking at Mason CHIN 480, Fourth Year Chinese with Instructor Lili Ren, and CHIN 365, Post-Mao Fictions with Instructor Ting Li! Thanks should also go to Ms. Lili Ren, a seasoned instructor visiting Mason from the Beijing Language and Culture University, affiliated with the Confucius Institute at Mason, who spent numerous hours during the weeks leading up to the contest helping Austin prepare, and memorize his speech for the competition.