We are happy to announce that Xi’an International Conference on Private Higher Education: China and Beyond is going to be held at Xi’an International University, Xi’an, China from December 14 to December 16, 2004 (the last day of the conference will be arranged for an organized tour around Xi'an, especially for the participants from outside of China). It is our honor to sponsor this conference, and we warmly invite you to join us.

This conference will provide an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of original and diverse ideas promoting discussion and debate on private higher education, especially private higher education in China, which revived in the mid 1980s from a dormancy of 40 years, and has been expanding at great speed since the early 1990s. We welcome presentations significant to the understanding or improvement of private higher educational practices, theory and policy. Presentations may take various forms such as case studies, policy analyses, reflections on dilemmas of practice, and reports or reviews of research.