July 1, 2016 More than 40 Chinese athletics administrators will arrive on the University of Notre Dame campus Tuesday for a unique month-long study program covering all aspects of Notre Dame athletics and multiple facets of university administration. The University of Notre Dame Overseas Study Program for University Sports Leaders in China will offer university, high school, middle school and education department administrators multiple daily presentations by members of the Notre Dame athletics department.

The group also will tour athletics facilities and observe various sports teams during summer camps. Among the areas covered will be compliance, academic services for student-athletes, equipment and apparel, mental conditioning, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, sport science, nutrition, student welfare and development and career services, event management and communications/digital media. More than 40 Notre Dame athletics staff members will participate in some aspect of the study program. All presentations will be translated for the Chinese delegation.

Co-hosted by Notre Dame International, the Chinese delegation also will hear presentations from Notre Dame leaders on understanding how a university’s athletics funding model supports its academic mission and will attend workshops on integrating student-athlete recruitment into an overall student enrollment strategy.

The slate of off-campus activities includes a visit to NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, a Chicago Cubs baseball game, a Chicago skyline boat tour on Lake Michigan and other local sports and recreational venues.

Notre Dame is taking part in the program to strengthen cooperation and support the growth of amateur athletics in Chinese higher education. University assistant provost for internationalization Jonathan Noble spoke June 7 in Beijing at a signing ceremony between Notre Dame and the Federation of University Sports of China (FUSC), inaugurating the administrator training program on the Notre Dame campus.

The signing ceremony was part of the seventh annual U.S.-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE), a conference to promote and strengthen ties between the United States and China in the fields of education, culture, health, science and technology, sports and women’s issues.

Headquartered in Beijing under China’s Ministry of Education and established in 1975, FUSC is the solely authorized national organization for university sports. The main roles of the FUSC are:

• To popularize national education and sports policy among college students and seek support to the university sports;
• To organize all kinds of national collegiate sports event and promote exchanges with university sports associations all over the world;
• To assist participation in international collegiate sports event and sports exchanges.

FUSC representatives originally contacted Notre Dame officials to propose this program. They made two visits to campus last summer-and the Notre Dame staff has spent the last nine months building the various components. Associate athletics director Beth Hunter and Monogram Club executive director Brant Ust have coordinated the four weeks of programming from the Notre Dame athletics side.