Source: Office of International Cooperation & Exchange
Written by: Office of International Cooperation & Exchange
Proofread by: Guo Lianlian
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On June 22, 2015, Prof. Luo Jun, President of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), attended the US-China University Presidents Roundtable held in Rice University. It was jointly organized by China Scholarship Council and Rice University. Vice Premier Liu Yandong attended the Roundtable and delivered a keynote address.

Vice Premier Liu Yandong said that universities have been the pioneer in people-to-people exchange. She hoped that universities in both nations will deepen the cooperation and exchanges in nurturing talents, science research and social service, provide a more powerful intellectual foundation to realize win-win cooperation between the two nations, and find ways to improve young people’s cross-culture communication capabilities.

President Luo Jun gave a speech entitled “General Education in China” in which he pointed out that general education plays a supplementary role in professional education in Chinese universities. General education in China has the following characteristics: First, promoting humanities education is often the goal most emphasized in general education in Chinese universities. Second, general education in Chinese universities is developing in sync with China's reform and opening up. Third, the development of globalization has made issues concerning global development and China's development an increasingly central focus of general education. In terms of general education in SYSU, we have developed a campus-wide multi-tier general education program. The first tier is the compulsory courses of general education for all undergraduates. The second tier is the courses of general education designed by various schools and departments. The final level is the pilot project --- the specially established Boya (Liberal Arts) College. The basic philosophy of general education in SYSU is to cultivate students to rise to various challenges of the 21st century with an open mind based on the reality of China.

Presidents of over forty renowned American and Chinese universities, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, Sichuan University, Rice University, University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, and Indiana University, attended the Roundtable. They discussed issues centering round the two topics: Research Collaboration & New Directions; Digital Education, Student Mobility and Liberal Education.

President Luo Jun also visited Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh and held a meeting with Dr. Subra Suresh, President of CMU. The two sides reviewed the cooperation between the two universities and exchanged views on future collaborations. The attendees of the meeting also included Prof. Wei Minghai, Vice President of SYSU, Ms. Xu Yao, Deputy Director of Office of International Cooperation & Exchange of SYSU, Dr. K. Jimmy Hsia, Vice Provost for International Programs and Strategy of CMU, Ms. Mary Jo Dively, Vice President & General Counsel of CMU, and Prof. Jimmy Zhu, Co-Director of SYSU-CMU Joint Institute of Engineering.

The US-China University Presidents Roundtable, with the aim to strengthen cooperation in higher education, is one of the series of educational exchange activities of the sixth round of China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange. On June 23, 2015, the joint opening ceremony of the seventh round of China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue and the sixth round of China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange was held in Washington D.C..