2nd China Night dancers: Yang Li (third from the right) will demonstrate traditional Chinese dance.As the school year comes to a close, so does this year's La Cultura lecture series.

One of the final speakers for the series, Ernest Zhang, will be coming to UPG to discuss the Chinese news industry.

Zhang's lecture will take place on Tuesday, April 10, at 7:00 p.m. in the Hempfield Room.

If there’s one thing students should expect from this lecture, it’s that Zhang will have a lot to say on the subject of journalism.

Zhang is the China program coordinator and a doctoral candidate at the Missouri School of Journalism. He was invited by the Eastern Asia Study School of the Washington University in St. Louis to attend a round-table panel discussion to talk about China's Media Reform to university-wide faculty and students.

Having retained an active role in several key U.S. associations of journalism and communication, Zhang says that he strives to import advanced technologies and concepts to better China’s media industry and journalism education. Zhang has presented many of his papers at academic conferences and he has published articles on American and Asian core journals of journalism.

“By briefly recalling Chinese news industry's major role as a propaganda tool for the Party and the government, I will focus on its reforms, its current situation, and its current roles and functions,” Zhang says. “I will display enough cases to show how the news industry is operated and what the relationship between the news outlets and the government is.”

Zhang’s wife, Yang Li, will accompany him to UPG to talk about traditional Chinese folk dancing. Yang Li will be performing traditional dance the following evening at 7:00 p.m. in the Hempfield room.

Li, a former associate professor of Guangdong University of Business, started to learn Chinese folk dance when she was a little girl. Now she is the director of the university's Performing Art Troupe.

She co-directed the 2nd China Night, a gala party of Chinese songs and dances, at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Li will introduce Chinese folk dance by using a PowerPoint presentation and video clips and then demonstrate some dance moves wearing the traditional garb.

“I think one of the greatest advantages of the La Cultura theme on campus is the opportunity to bring representative of different cultures to campus,” Anne Czerwinski, professor of communication, says.

Czerwinski reflects on another successful La Cultura lecture series with much pride and is looking forward to next year’s events.

“We have brought in speakers to discuss the philosophy of other cultures, the religion, the art, the food, the music and dance,” Czerwinski says. “Many of our students have not traveled out of the country, and this is one way to bring other countries to them. The villages have done so much to further the role of La Cultura on campus.”

Both events are sponsored by Lambda Pi Eta, the HAV student council, SGA and HAV.

Village credit will be offered.