Champlain Business Students Eligible for China Internship in Shanghai

Champlain College has received a $100,000 grant from the Freeman Family Foundation to underwrite providing internships in Shanghai, China for 16 students from the Robert P. Stiller School of Business.

This is an opportunity for business students in various fields of study to gain both international and professional experience, according to David Strubler, dean of the Stiller Business School.

Champlain College President David F. Finney; Associate Provost and Senior International Officer James Cross; Vermont Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Miller; and Assistant Director of Study Abroad Noah Goldblatt returned last month from Shanghai after meeting with the host university, The Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade. They were there to network with Shanghai businesses seeking interns, as well as promoting Champlain College and the state of Vermont. Through the program, students can choose to take advantage of just an internship, or they can study abroad at the University for a semester. Tuition is not covered by the grant.

The grant provides a stipend towards normal expenses related towards a semester internship in China. The grant covers room and board at The Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade, an internship placement fee, $1,500 towards airfare to China, and $750 towards regional travel (reimbursable). Other expenses are out of pocket for students.

Students can opt to study abroad in the spring, followed by a summer internship; study abroad in the spring with an embedded internship; take a summer internship for or not-for course credit; or fall study abroad semester with an embedded internship.

Senior International Business major, Ethan Edholm '13 will be the first Champlain students in the program in the spring of 2013. Students applying for the summer 2013 internship have until March 1 to apply. Contact Baker at shbaker@champlain.edu for more information.

"In today's (and tomorrow's) global business environment, such exposure and experience will be invaluable and repeatedly serve the students well throughout their careers," said Assistant Dean of Business Scott Baker. "This experience will increase students' worldview, cultural awareness, and business experience, and help distinguish them as graduates with a demonstrated aptitude and ability to "stand out" among other college graduates."

Members of the selection committee include Strubler, Baker, Director of the International Business Program Tom Myers, and Business Division Career Services Advisor Pat Boera.

About the Freeman Foundation:

The Freeman Foundation was established in 1994 through the bequest and in memory of the businessman and benefactor Mansfield Freeman, a co-founder of the international insurance and financial conglomerate American International Group, Inc., better known as AIG. This private and philanthropic foundation, based in Stowe, Vermont, with offices in New York City, is dedicated to augmenting international understanding between the United States and the nations of East Asia. It accomplishes this principally through the distribution of grants in the educational sector. The foundation, which grants about $50 million every year to various organizations and institutions, is committed to increasing, strengthening, and popularizing the teaching of Asia in university classrooms. It has created the Undergraduate Asian Studies Funding Initiative to provide grants to numerous American colleges to strengthen and expand their Asian studies programs. The dual aims of the initiative are to increase access to Asian studies courses and to increase the number of students in the United States studying about Asia.


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.