Ginling College, the University of Michigan and the Barbour Scholarship

Abstract

Ginling College (“Ginling”) was the first institution of higher learning in China to grant bachelor’s degrees to women. Located in Nanking (now Nanjing) and founded in 1915 by western missionaries, Ginling had already graduated nearly 1,000 women when it merged with the University of Nanking in 1951 to become National Ginling University. The University of Michigan (“Michigan”) has had a long history of exchange with Ginling. During Ginling’s first 36 years of operation, Michigan graduates and faculty taught Chinese women at Ginling, and Ginlingers furthered their studies at Michigan through the Barbour Scholarship. This paper highlights the connection between Ginling and Michigan by profiling some of the significant people and events that shaped this unique relationship. It begins by introducing six Michigan graduates and faculty who taught at Ginling. Next we look at the 21 Ginlingers who studied at Michigan through the Barbour Scholarship (including 8 Barbour Scholars from Ginling who were awarded doctorate degrees), and their status after returning to China. Finally, we consider the lives of prominent Chinese women scholars from Ginling who changed China, such as Dr. Wu Yi-fang, a member of Ginling’s first graduating class and, later, its second president; and Miss Wu Ching-yi, who witnessed the brutality of the Rape of Nanking and later worked with Miss Minnie Vautrin to help refugees in Ginling Refugee Camp. Between 2015 and 2017, Ginling College celebrates the centennial anniversary of its founding; and the University of Michigan marks both its bicentennial and the hundredth anniversary of the Barbour Gift, the source of the Barbour Scholarship. The present discussion seeks to provide context for the anniversaries of these extraordinary institutions and the inspiring relationship between them that has endured for a century.