Western Washington University

02/03/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 02/04/2026 13:37

Delegation from National University of Mongolia visits Western

Delegation from National University of Mongolia visits Western

February 3, 2026

Erdene-Ochir Tumen-Ochir and Zayabaatar Dalai of the National University of Mongolia visit Shannon Point Marine Center with Brian Bingham.

A delegation from Mongolia's flagship university, the National University of Mongolia, spent a week at Western last month, deepening the relationship between the two universities that officially began in 2014.

Zayabaatar Dalai, vice president for Academic Affairs and Student Development at NUM, and Erdene-Ochir Tumen-Ochir, head of NUM's Department of Mongolian Language and Linguistics, toured Shannon Point Marine Center, met with Western faculty who have collaborated on research with NUM faculty, toured the Western libraries Tutoring Center and the Hacherl Research & Writing Studio, and met with Vice Provost for Research David Patrick and Provost Brad Johnson.

The week included several opportunities for cultural exchange: Erdene-Ochir, an associate professor of linguistics and former visiting professor at Western, gave a presentation for the WWU Linguistics Department exploring linguistic concepts in political protest speech. Mongolian-born musician Urtaa Gantulga performed on campus and met with music and musicology students, and both Erdene-Ochir and Zayabaatar were honored guests at the Cinema East screening of a 2023 Mongolian feature film, "If Only I Could Hibernate," at the Pickford Film Center.

Urtaa Gantulga of Seattle plays the morin khuur, a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument, with WWU music students.

Throughout the week, the NUM faculty expressed the hope that their collaboration with Western continue to grow, particularly in the areas of chemistry, psychology, sociology and social work, Mongolian language and linguistics, journalism, education and library services, said Mark Greenberg, director of Faculty Global Engagement.

Western Libraries is home to the largest Mongolian language collection in North America, outside of the Library of Congress, with nearly 22,000 titles. The collection and Mongolian Studies at Western are funded by the John C. Street Endowment in Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies, which also enables faculty to travel between the universities to teach, conduct research and attend conferences.

In 2014, WWU and NAU entered a mutual agreement to exchange faculty, staff and students, engage in joint research projects, exchange academic publications and information and promote other activities. Today, there are a dozen collaborative initiatives between the two universities and students from each university study abroad at the other institution.

To learn more about international opportunities at Western, visit the Office of Global Engagement.

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