On May 16th, a delegation from East Carolina University (ECU) led by Dr. Elmer Poe, Associate Vice-Chancellor for Academic Outreach, and Dr. Rosina Chia, Assistant Vice-Chancellor for Global Academic Initiatives, was warmly welcomed by SDU Vice-President Lou Hongxiang. The main purpose of the visit was to discuss future cooperation and to present SDU with the First Annual GPE Outstanding Partner Award.

In his welcoming speech, Vice-President Lou praised the achievements of the two universities in joint course construction and research programs.

He also proposed to strengthen cooperation in the area of student education. In Dr. Poe's speech, Poe extended the greetings of Chancellor Steve Ballard and stated his expectation for the two universities to explore new cooperative approaches and expand the range of cooperation to other subjects.

On behalf of Global Partners in Education (GPE), Dr.Poe awarded SDU with the First Annual GPE Outstanding Partner Award for its outstanding contribution to GPE's International Course Exchange Project. GPE is an organization and global network of educational institutions. It now has 32 partner universities from 22 countries, with ECU as the leading university.

During the visit, ECU and SDU also reached an agreement to build an international Internet course center at SDU to promote all-around cooperation with global universities.

The SDU and ECU established cooperative relations in the fall of 2008 and have since created courses together such as Global Understanding, Global Climate Change, and International Academic Writing, as well as program series such as Innovative Design Workshop and Youth Theatre.

Written by: Cao Jing

Photo by: Liu Caifeng

Source: International Office