Business graduates soon will be able to conduct business in the native language of one of the world's booming economies.

Basic Chinese is being taught for the first time this year, and advanced Chinese will be added in the coming months.

The International Business and Language major offered through the College of Business Administration is popular for students who studied a foreign language in high school. Usually those students are fluent in Spanish, French or German.

Now, TU has three freshmen who are planning to major in International Business and Chinese. They will take the core language and business classes in Tulsa and study upper-level Chinese in China.

"There's a huge connection between China and Tulsa," said J. Markham Collins, associate dean of the College of Business Administration. "There are a lot of companies from Tulsa that have been doing business there, and Tulsa has a relationship through the Sister Cities Program. The University wants to lead the effort to make Tulsans competitive in China."

Tulsa has a Chinese Sister City through the Tulsa Global Alliance.

Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa teaches Chinese, and Collins hopes that many Washington graduates will continue their language study at TU.

The College of Business Administration is currently engaged in a national search for a new Wellspring Professor of International Business with expertise in Chinese business.

Also, the College of Arts and Sciences has two professors whose specialties are Chinese history and political science.

These professors, combined with study-abroad opportunities and an exchange partnership that is in the works, are making TU the place to be for Chinese business education.

"This is a big new area of opportunity," Collins said. "We have had a lot of students who were interested in Chinese business and language. Now we will have a program for them."