On May 25, Benoit-Antoine Bacon, the Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) of Queen's University in Canada, led a delegation on a mission to visit the Qingdao Campus of Shandong University. Li Zhenkui, Deputy Director of the Construction Office of the Qingdao Campus, met the delegation on behalf of SDU.

During the meeting, Li Zhenkui introduced the history of SDU, leading disciplines and current international cooperation. He also introduced the blueprint and the characteristic of internationalization of Qingdao Campus. Qingdao witnessed the prime times of SDU twice and will continue to embrace its further prosperity. Li mentioned that SDU wishes to increase mutual understanding with Queen's University, and seeks to establish a strategic and sustainable university-wide partnership program of long-term teaching and research collaboration.

Benoit－Antoine Bacon stated that his trip to Shandong University marked his first visit to China after he was appointed the Provost. He appreciated the architectural styles and function plans of Qingdao Campus. He also looked forward to the future cooperation between the two, as China is a strategic partner for Queen's University. There must be much more cooperating and exchanging opportunities in the future plan. He hopes that the two universities will develop and sustain joint partnerships and projects that can make a difference in leading areas such as cancer treatment, cleaning technologies, artificial intelligence and neuropsychology.

After the meeting, working conference was held between the delegations of Queen's University and the Department of International Affairs of SDU to further discuss issues, including overseas study and short-term exchanges of students, mutual visits of scholars, teacher training, internship and practice and so on. Ms. Kathy O’Brien, assistant of Vice-Principal (International Affairs) of Queen's University, Csilla Volford, Coordinator of International Projects and Events of Queen's University, and Zhang Zhiyao, Director of Queen’s China Liaison Office (CLO) and Professor Liu Xudong visited SDU.

Queen's University is one of Canada's oldest degree-granting institutions established by Royal Charter of Queen Victoria in 1841. Located in Kingston, Canada, it has a branch campus in Herstmonceux, East Sussex, United Kingdom. It currently has about 25000 students, among whom 20% are international students. It also has 8600 academic and administrative staffs.

Translated by Zhang Xinyuan

Edited by Xiao Di, Meng Shuai

Source: view.sdu.edu.cn