Cal State Long Beach will welcome Taiwan’s Ming Chuan University on Friday, July 31, launching dual-degree graduate programs in business and Asian studies.
A ceremony will take place from 3:30 to 4:20 p.m. Friday in CSULB’s Foundation Building, room 100. The event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony and an open house for the partnership’s office suite, as well as a lion dance and drum performance by the Shaolin Temple Kung Fu School.
CSULB will be the only Cal State University at which international university will have a permanent on-campus presence. Beginning in the 2027-28 academic year, students will be able to earn a degree from each university by participating in one of the two dual-degree master’s programs.
The first program offers a master’s in business administration from CSULB, and a degree in international business and trade from MCU. In the other program, students can earn degrees in Asian studies from CSULB and teaching Chinese as a foreign language from MCU.
Faculty from MCU will come to CSULB for about a semester at a time to teach their parts of the dual degrees, said MCU-U.S. Director LeeAnn Eyerman.
“Within the same period, most people complete one degree,” Eyerman said in an interview. “They’ll be able to complete two distinct degrees, one for each of the institutions.”
MCU is the first U.S.-accredited university in Asia. The university’s U.S. presence began in 2014 at Saginaw Valley State University, in Michigan, but MCU officials decided to relocate to Long Beach because of its proximity to Asia and the large local Asian American populations, particularly the Taiwanese community, Eyerman said.
MCU’s largest location in Taiwan is in Taoyuan, one of Long Beach’s sister cities.
CSULB and MCU, meanwhile, have participated in student exchange programs for the past 20 years. And an internship component of the dual-degree programs will allow CSULB students to travel to Taiwan for cultural and language immersion and work experience.
“To do this in the United States,” Eyerman said, “allows us to provide pathways for students from Taiwan or other parts of Asia to start a degree on the Asian side and be able to complete it or supplement on the U.S. side.”
While the dual-degree programs will launch in fall 2027, CSULB has already begun programming with MCU. A language and cultural promotion grant from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, for example, allowed MCU students and one professor to visit CSULB earlier this year. The visitors engaged with faculty and students, including adults in CSULB’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.