The University of Southern Maine is closing a program that gets funding from the Chinese government

The University of Southern Maine is closing a program that gets funding from the Chinese government and provides Mandarin Chinese language classes and other cultural programs on campus, officials said.

The university remains dedicated to “person-to-person exchanges, enhancing global understanding, and promoting cross-cultural learning” but that too few students were utilizing the Confucius Institute, said Marc Glass, director of public affairs at USM.

“ While our relationship with Confucius Institute enhanced our language curriculum, we found that it reached too few students to be sustainable,”

Glass said in a statement.