DePaul University business professor Patrick Murphy takes networking to a whole new hemisphere.

For the past two years, Murphy has built a relationship between DePaul and China’s Huaqiao University.

The move is strategic. China’s economy is second only to the United States, but by 2028, analysts believe that the two countries will swap places.

To keep DePaul competitive, Murphy wants his business students to experience, learn and understand China, as well as for all DePaul colleges, students and faculty to have the opportunity available to them.

In December 2013, the first DePaul students travelled the 6,000 miles to Huaqiao as ambassadors and networked with Huaqiao students. Among them was economics major Patrick Donley.

“I was an outsider. I was an observer. I wanted to see how the country worked,” Donley said.

During his two-week visit, he took Mandarin classes for the first time, practiced calligraphy and spent time at the local teahouses.

In March, DePaul’s department of Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse (WRD) welcomed Chinese scholar from Huaqiao, Yangping Zeng, who researches how to incorporate technology when teaching English as a second language.

Because lectures are the traditional teaching style at Chinese universities, technology has yet to be included in classrooms.

However, it is the similarities between DePaul and Huaqiao that brought the two universities together.

When the retired DePaul provost, Helmut Epp, asked Murphy to begin the university level project, Murphy recruited his first Chinese teacher, Michael Zhao, to help research a potential university for collaboration.

“You don’t enter China without having meaningful relationships with people who know what they’re doing,” Murphy said.

Huaqiao was chosen over 20 other Chinese universities because it is similarly sized to DePaul, and both universities seek to internationalize.

In one month since her arrival, Zeng, who teaches at Huaqiao, noticed the compatibility as well.

“Both schools value international relationships. Both schools are teaching-oriented, and both campuses are culturally diversified. I also find that there are sports that both schools are proud of respectively. DePaul has the Blue Demons while Huaqiao has CUBA (China University Basketball Association) team,” Zeng said.

Murphy hopes to grow the DePaul-Huaqiao alliance so that one day, the two teams can play in a head-to-head basketball game.

For now, word of mouth at Huaqiao’s campus has increased student interest in studying at DePaul.

“Students are beginning to apply to DePaul because they’ve heard about the relationships that their university has with DePaul,” Murphy said, “What we have at DePaul is an educational experience that [Chinese students] might not otherwise get.”

Huaqiao offers DePaul students who are particularly interested in language, business or teaching the opportunities to improve their skills.

In fall 2014, DePaul WRD alumnus, John Moore, will teach English at Huaqiao as a hired instructor.

Students and faculty looking to expand their educational borders can contact Murphy at the Driehaus College of Business.