Recently, a delegation from Shandong University led by Zhang Rong, President of SDU, visited Arizona State University (ASU), and had talks with Michael Crow, President of ASU, Sethuraman Panchanathan, Senior Vice President at ASU’s Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development. William Petuskey, Associate Vice Presidents of Knowledge Enterprise Development, Stephen Feinson, Assistant Vice President of ASU Global in the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, and Rick Shangraw, Chief Executive Officer of the ASU Foundation.
Zhang outlined SDU’s idea of integral development, and introduced the development strategy of Qingdao campus as well as preparations for disciplines, especially SDU’s plan for integrated advanced disciplines to form a cluster of several big emerging disciplines.
"SDU's train of thought of leapfrog development at SDU is similar to that of ASU", Zhang remarked, "the advanced disciplines of the two universities have a lot in common, and share a large cooperative space."
He also expressed his hope that the two universities will cooperate in the fields of life sciences, medical treatment and health care, design science, technology transfer and Chinese studies, especially in building a platform of innovative scientific research together.
Crow introduced the idea of development, and said that ASU has developed its own characteristics of development though combining many factors like education, exploration and innovation, and has built a number of advantage and emerging disciplines. Recently, ASU has become one of the fastest growing universities in scientific research in the U.S.
He noted that SDU has a long history and rich educational resources, such as the Qingdao campus, which will soon be put into use in providing new opportunities in the cooperation between the two universities.
After the meeting, Zhang also visited the ASU’s Center for Electron Microscopy, Biodesign Institute and other related laboratories. ASU’s deans of the School of Health Solutions, the School of Design and the Arts, the School of Engineering and the Biodesign Institute, as well as officials of SDU’s International Affairs Department, attended the relevant activities.