Our Board of Directors

William Reeder (Chairperson of the Board)

Mr. Reeder is the former Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, George Mason University. As a leading arts and cultural management practitioner, he has served as Vice President and General Manager of the Washington Performing Arts Society; established the Sallie Mae Trust for Education at the Sallie Mae; Executive Director of the Levine School of Music in Washington D.C.; President of the Saint Louis Conservatory of Music; Executive Director of Opera Music Theatre International; Newark Community School of the Arts. In addition, Dean Reeder has been on the faculty and administration of Indiana University, Bloomington, and Illinois State University. For eight years, Mr. Reeder was a leading operatic tenor engaged by the Zurich, Switzerland Opera Company. As a professional singer, he performed more than 40 leading tenor roles in 15 major opera houses throughout Europe.

Lixia Chen

Ms. CHEN Lixia is an associate professor of Beijing Language and Culture University. Her research fields include language education, Chinese language teaching, and intercultural communication studies. She serves as an expert consultant for the language and culture programs of Sino-US people-to-people exchanges, China-France people-to-people exchanges, and China-EU people-to people-exchanges. As a Chinese expert, she was invited to work with the APEC Education Cooperation Group, and with the Magic House project sponsored by the American Freeman Foundation.

She is the co-editor of a series of textbooks such as Step Up, and has published academic works and monographs including Teachers in Action: in-service teacher education and development, Current Situation of Foreign Language Education in Japan and Policy Studies, Foreign Language Education in Bulgaria and Policy Studies, and Foreign Language Education in Korea and Policy Studies, some of which are funded by the National Publishing Foundations.

Limin Jin

Dr. JIN Limin, professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the School of English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her research interests are primarily in second language acquisition, and English language teaching theories and methods. Courses she has taught include “Second Language Acquisition” and “Research Methods in Applied Linguistics” for MA students, and “Public Speaking”, and “Debate in English” for undergraduate students. She has published a monograph The Development of Aspect Marking in L2 Chinese by English Native Speakers, several series of textbooks, and journal articles.

She is currently working on a monograph on the teaching and research on Speaking. She has won five Teaching Achievement Awards (2009, 2012, 2017) for the educational reform projects she has been involved in since 2005, and an Outstanding Teaching Award, all from the Beijing Municipal Government. She is a member-at-large of the Executive Board of AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) and a member of the standing committee of CELEA (China English Language Education Association).

Kai Xiao

Mr. XIAO Kai joined the international office at Beijing Normal University in 1999. He has worked very closely on a number of projects such as Fulbright-Hayes Summer Seminars, Oxford University Senior Leadership Development Program, the establishment of multiple Confucius institutes and other collaborative centers between BNU and overseas universities and so on. He was also a visiting scholar from 2005 to 2006 in the University wide Office of Education Abroad Programs, University of California System. He was elected as deputy secretary general  for BNU Alumni Association, and deputy secretary general of International Communication Committee, International Confucian Association.