UIC Provost Prof Chen Zhi delivered a keynote speech on "Hybrid Teaching and Opportunities of Sino-Foreign Cooperative Universities" at the 6th Council Meeting of Sino-foreign Cooperative University Union held at Wenzhou-Kean University on 16 November.
Presidents, vice-presidents and representatives of the nine joint venture universities joined the meeting and made keynote speeches to further explore new opportunities and paths for the development of Sino-foreign cooperative universities.
Director of Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges (Office of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs) of Ministry of Education, Ms Liu Jin; Secretary of Party Committee, Director of Department of Education of Zhejiang Province, Ms Chen Genfang and Vice Mayor of Wenzhou Ms Tang Xiaoshu also attended the meeting.
Director of Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges of Ministry of Education, Ms Liu Jin addressing the meeting
Provost Prof Chen Zhi focused on hybrid teaching and learning under the pandemic and mentioned that under the situation of overseas study facing multiple obstacles. He explained how Sino-foreign cooperative universities are becoming the new choice for students, for it both broadens their international horizons and gets them in touch with different cultures.
Prof Chen Zhi focusing on hybrid teaching and learning
Prof Chen Zhi said in the Shanghai Ranking of Chinese universities, UIC was ranked the sixth in the rate of further study of 2019 graduates, the third in overseas enrollment rate and the top 100 universities of high-end talents in 2020. Prof Chen Zhi also introduced undergraduate and postgraduate admissions and personnel recruiting of UIC during the pandemic.
This academic year, UIC has adopted online, offline and mixed methods to carry out teaching activities
Prof Chen Zhi said that liberal arts education lays great emphasis on students' learning experience. He explained that from another point of view, the internet is borderless and free of time and limit, which is also in line with the learning philosophy of liberal arts - "knowledge is boundless". Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic has not brought a fundamental effect on the foundations of liberal arts education.
Prof Chen Zhi put forward visions of development for Sino-foreign cooperative universities from six aspects: the new opportunities for UIC to build the second phase of the campus, the importance of students' active learning ability, online-offline-combined learning experience, closer union cooperation, sharing of educational resources, and "cloud internationalization community". Under the situation of pandemic bringing both difficulties and opportunities to Sino-foreign cooperative universities, Prof Chen Zhi hoped that the union would continue to maintain close contact and go forward hand in hand.
Presidents, vice-presidents and representatives from Wenzhou-Kean University, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Duke Kunshan University, NYU Shanghai, Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen also made keynote speeches.
Since its establishment in 2014, the Sino-foreign Cooperative University Union has been actively sharing the optimal teaching practice and teaching philosophy of each school. In the future, it will continue to enhance the influence of Sino-foreign cooperative universities on and promote the comprehensive and in-depth reform and development of national higher education.
From Wenzhou-Kean University, UIC MPRO
Editors: Samuel Burgess, Deen He, Xia Meng
