George Washington University alumna Terryl Boxley, M.A.’24, will spend a year in Taiwan studying Mandarin Chinese as the inaugural recipient of the David Gitter Fellowship for Advanced Chinese Language Study.
The fellowship was made possible by a generous gift from The David A. Gitter Endowment for Contemporary China Studies. Elliott School alumnus David Gitter, M.A. ’15, oversaw the establishment of the endowment, which provided a $1 million fund to train the next generation of contemporary China experts through Mandarin language immersion in China and graduate-level coursework.
Recipients of the fellowship receive a stipend that can be used to support reasonable tuition and living expenses to study in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or Taiwan.
Gitter, who majored in Asian Studies while studying for his master’s at the Elliott School, lived and studied in Beijing in the early 2000s. Through that experience, he saw firsthand how essential proficiency in the Chinese language is to an understanding of the major world power—an understanding that lays the foundation for informed U.S.-China policies.
“The People’s Republic of China is a major world power and of extreme importance to the United States,” Gitter said. “I want this endowment to help American scholars and practitioners acquire a deep and granular understanding of the PRC.”
Gitter is the founder and president of the Center for Advanced China Research (CACR), a nonprofit research organization that conducts Chinese-language research on China’s domestic politics, foreign affairs and security policy. The David A. Gitter Endowment for Contemporary China Studies will serve as an extension of the center’s work at GW.
As the first recipient of the fellowship, Boxely will take classes beginning in September through May 2025 as a full-time student at the prestigious International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan.
Boxely began studying Mandarin Chinese in sixth grade and learning the language became a passion for her. She decided to pursue a degree in Chinese studies with minors in law and marketing for her undergraduate degree at the University of Tulsa. While pursuing her master’s degree at the Elliott School, Boxely chose China/Taiwan for her specialization in hopes of improving her Mandarin language abilities while enrolled at GW.
Elliott School Dean Alyssa Ayres said the exceptional gift from the David A. Gitter Endowment recognizes the field-defining work that the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the Elliott School is doing and will strengthen the program’s offerings for students focused on China.
“Given China’s role on the world stage, there is a critical need to strengthen our cadre of U.S. experts who understand contemporary China—and are proficient in Mandarin,” Ayres said.
