Champlain College to Participate in China Town Hall Webcast

President Jimmy Carter

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Champlain College will join some 70 other sites across the country on Oct. 16 in hosting a live webcast and question and answer session with former President Jimmy Carter on the topic of U.S. and China relations.

Some of the world's most critical issues, including economics, climate change, security and trade, will require the United States and China—the two largest economies, energy users and greenhouse gas emitters—to cooperate to achieve lasting global solutions. To help Americans understand the dynamic U.S.-China relationship and answer questions on issues that touch their daily lives, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in collaboration with The Carter Center is conducting the eighth annual CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections program on Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. President Carter's discussion and responses to questions submitted by the nationwide audience will be moderated by National Committee President Stephen Orlins.

At Champlain College the event will be held in the Morgan Room at Aiken Hall and will start at 6:30 p.m. with tea and a chance to meet some of the Chinese students currently studying at Champlain. The event is free and open to the public. Aiken Hall is on the corner of Maple Street and Summit Street.

In addition to the national portion of the program, each venue will have a prominent China specialist on site to address topics of interest to the local community, including economics and trade, energy and the environment, security and other issues. An interactive list of program locations nationwide is available at: https://www.ncuscr.org/program/china-town-hall/2014

Following the Town Hall webcast at 8 p.m., Champlain College will host Siu Tip Lam speaking on the topic of Environmental Governance in China. Siu Tip is the director of Vermont Law School's U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law, a grant-supported program that works to strengthen the rule of law in environmental protection and to build capacity among individuals and institutions to solve pollution and energy problems in China.

China Town HallPrior to joining Vermont Law School, Siu Tip was an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Protection Division at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office for 11 years. During her tenure there, she enforced state environmental laws and litigated throughout the Massachusetts court system, including the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Prior to that, she practiced law with the Boston firm of Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer as a litigation associate. She graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges with a BA degree in East Asian Studies and received her JD from Northeastern University School of Law.

The local program is sponsored by the Vermont Council on World Affairs and Champlain College's Office of International Education, which is dedicated to supporting the College's goal to ensure that students graduate prepared to be globally engaged citizens with international experience and global perspective. The mission of the Vermont Council on World Affairs is to promote awareness and understanding of the world and its people, places and cultures through education and engagement.

Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981. Under Carter's leadership, on Jan. 1, 1979, the United States established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. In 1982, he became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded The Carter Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that addresses national and international issues of public policy. Since leaving office, President Carter has visited China 12 times, including most recently this past September.

The National Committee on United States-China Relations is the leading national, non-partisan public affairs organization devoted exclusively to building constructive and durable relationships between the United States and China.

For more information:

Local Contact:

  • Elin Melchior, Office of International Education, Champlain College, (802) 651-5842 | emelchior@champlain.edu
  • Stephen Mease, Director of Public information and News, Champlain College, (802) 865-6432 | smease@champlain.edu

Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.