Chancellor Biddy Martin returned from a trip to China last night, bringing stories and new initiatives with her, including a new partnership between the University of Wisconsin and the Beijing University of Sport that will bring Chinese Olympian student-athletes to spend six months studying at UW.

UW spokesperson John Lucas said Martin’s goals for the trip were three-fold: to enhance collaboration with Chinese universities, bring more Chinese students to UW and enhance the worldwide visibility of UW.

To accomplish these goals, Lucas said Martin met with officials at Chinese universities in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities to create “memorandums of understanding,” or partnership programs involving Chinese students and students at UW.

He said she also met with admitted but not yet enrolled students and their parents to answer their questions about coming to UW to achieve her goal of increasing the number of Chinese students on campus.

Lucas said Martin did very well with increasing UW’s visibility.

“It was really exciting. Exhausting and overwhelming, but she did a really great job,” Lucas said.

One newly formed partnership will bring 11 student-athletes to campus, including Olympic and world champions. They are participating in the Chinese Champions Workshop to study English, kinesiology and history, while developing leadership skills and experiencing UW athletics, a press release from UW said.

Until now, UW has never collaborated with a Chinese institution in this way, Chancellor Biddy Martin said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.

“We are very excited about it. I hope we will soon develop more robust exchanges and partnerships with a number of Chinese institutions,” she said.

The student-athletes seek high-level positions in sports administration around the world, and UW will provide an opportunity for them to pursue these goals, Martin said.

UW students will also benefit from the partnership with an opportunity to learn and build friendships with the student-athletes, she said.

“These athletes are considered national treasures in China. To have them entrusted to us, to our university, is a great honor,” she said.

Lucas added the athletes’ visit has been gaining a lot of press coverage in China. He said the athletes are very big celebrities there, and people in China are doing a lot of talking about their visit to the U.S. and UW.

The student-athletes have achieved success in sports like swimming, gymnastics, track, curling and table tennis, as well as others, the release said.

It added that as graduate students at Beijing University of Sport, the student-athletes will be enrolled in the Wisconsin Institute for Global Leadership as non-degree earning students and will receive a certificate for their work at UW.

Over the course of the next semester, Martin said she expects UW will receive officials from Beijing University of Sport. She also expects the partnership with the university will continue to grow.

“I would encourage our faculty, staff and especially our students to visit China, to find ways to learn more about China and to seek relationships that will allow cooperative approaches to the challenges that face us all,” she said.

–Carolyn Briggs contributed to this report.