President Qiu Yong Delivers Speech at US-China University Presidents’ Round Table
The U.S.-China University Presidents’ Round Table was held at Rice University in Houston last Monday. Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong attended the Round Table and gave the keynote address. Tsinghua University President Qiu Yong also delivered a speech at the Round Table, which was attended by over 40 Presidents and Chancellors from major U.S. and Chinese universities.
The Presidents and Chancellors discussed global education, research collaboration and cultural exchange. The topics addressed during the closed Round Table sessions included the value of a liberal arts education, new frontiers for research collaboration and ways to improve higher education cooperation between the U.S. and China.
Vice-Premier Liu praised the university Presidents and Chancellors for coming together to share their experiences and to discuss cooperation, calling it "an important component of people-to-people exchange between the U.S. and China".
"Universities have been the pioneer in people-to-people exchange," Vice-Premier Liu said.
"First, I hope that universities in both nations will deepen their cooperation and exchanges in nurturing talent, scientific research and social service. Second, I hope that you will provide a more powerful intellectual foundation to realize win-win cooperation between the two nations. Thirdly, I hope you will find ways to improve young people's cross-cultural communication capabilities, " Vice-Premier Liu said.
Tsinghua University President Qiu Yong said in his speech that Tsinghua has benefited greatly from the cooperation between the U.S. and China, and now the University is pushing for a tenure track system similar to that in the U.S..
President Qiu also mentioned the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), a technical graduate school created by Tsinghua, the University of Washington and Microsoft, as a primary example of how far cooperation has been advanced between the two nations, calling it the trend for the future.
GIX marks the first time that a Chinese research institution has established a physical location in the U.S., and is a reciprocal example of NYU and Shanghai.
