From Sept. 13th to Sept. 16th, Dr. Catherine Xu, Director of International Office, SILC was invited to attend the 28th Annual EAIE Conference and Exhibition (EAIE, European Association for International Education) held in Liverpool, UK.
EAIE is a European centered professional association for expertise, networking and resources in the internationalization of higher education. With its mission of promoting international exchange and cooperation of higher education world-widely, it has become one of the three biggest professional associations in the world that are specialized in internationalization of higher education. The other two are separately NAFSA (National Association of Foreign Student Affairs), and APAIE (ASIA-PACIFIC ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION). The annual conferences of the associations are now grand meetings for discussing and exploring international cooperative opportunities among universities and institutes over the world.
This year, there are over 5,200 delegates from 82 countries attending the annual conference. The conference provides booths of different countries for exhibition, and lectures delivered by international education experts. China not only has separate booths set by individual universities such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Sichuan University, but also has a big Study in China booth set by the CEAIE (China Education Association for International Exchange). Over 50 delegates from more than 30 universities in China exhibit their own universities in the Study in China booth, including Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Peking University etc.
Dr. Catherine Xu, on behalf of SILC, has made appointments with many universities pre-departure and has finally exchanged ideas and proposed preliminary cooperative intentions with 28 overseas universities during the conference. These universities include both old and new partners of SILC. New partners include UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA of Italy, University of Windsor, Canada, and Universidad Catolica De Murcia, Spain etc. Old partners would like to deepen the current cooperation and explore new cooperative opportunities. For instance, one of the old partners, King’s College of London, would like to enlarge the exchange students’ number for Summer School with SILC, and both sides also discussed other possible cooperative programs.
It is found during the conference that universities in Europe now pay more and more attention to their cooperation with Asian universities. Those universities usually require the students to study for one semester or one year in an overseas university. A university with a good geographical location, which can provide English courses as well as Chinese language courses, would be the students’ first choice in China. Up to now, SILC has basically met these requirements. However, in order to attract more prestigious universities to cooperate with SILC, we need to do more, including strengthening the construction of English courses, enriching international education culture on campus and exhibiting ourselves in the global market.
Nowadays, to promote international cooperation, such as promoting exchange of students and faculty, and attracting international students to study in the host countries, has become an important part of universities’ development strategies world-widely. In sum, attending this kind of international conference, not only provides an opportunity of talking with other universities face to face, but also helps the world to get acquainted with SILC, which will facilitate our international cooperation in the future.
