Library of Congress Reading Room

After an extremely busy semester at HNC, I headed to Washington DC to take part in several days of Joint Academic Committee (JAC) meetings at SAIS. The JAC consists of representatives from Johns Hopkins SAIS, Nanjing University and HNC – and it is where all of the issues regarding degree requirements, course work, faculty evaluations, and similar HNC academic matters are discussed and resolved. Surprisingly for a ‘rookie’, I served as the representative of the HNC’s international faculty.

It wasn’t all work, however – SAIS also arranged a tour of the Capitol and the Library of Congress for the visiting Chinese delegation, and so we were able to visit the House Chamber just a few days after seeing it on TV (as President Obama gave his State of the Union address there). We also visited the spectacular Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, and the Reading Room, with its statue of Michelangelo (very small in the photo, but mid-center-right, along the balustrade with red background) looking down on visiting scholars.

 

The Great Hall