As the fall semester passes its midpoint, a new professor at Grand Valley State University recounts her long journey to get to GVSU.

Haiying Kong, a first-year health communications instructor at GVSU, grew up in a small village in Zhuanghe, located in the northeast part of China. In China, Kong attended Liaoning Normal University in Dalian and earned a bachelor’s degree in English education.

After college, she was admitted to a study abroad program through her workplace. Kong arrived in the U.S. in 2002 and was impressed by the education system.

“You have a lot of flexibility (here), so you can decide your majors, and you can change it,” she said. “We don’t have that much freedom back home.”

Kong earned her master’s degree in communication and public administration from Missouri State University in 2005.

Kong taught basic communication courses for four years before being hired by the university. She first heard of GVSU on the Internet while searching for other colleges and universities.

Kong said was struck by the beauty of the campus on her first visit. She was also impressed by the faculty.

“When I came here, I was really impressed by the campus,” she said “It was pretty and the people are so supportive. Several professors from our school and other departments have helped me, They showed me around the campus, introduced me to the resources available for teaching and research, and shared teaching experience and advice.”

Kong teaches two communications classes: Communication Research and Health Communication Systems. She said communications appealed to her because of the individual disciplines she could pursue not available in China.

In addition to her classes, Kong is researching complementary and alternative medicine and how patients and doctors interact through interpreters.

Eventually, Kong said she would like to use her experiences in the U.S. to help her hometown.

“Sometime in the future, I would like to go home and practice what I have learned over there,” she said.

[email protected]