On the morning of May 18, the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of SILC Business School and the Seminar on Sino-Australian Cooperative Education were held on Jiading Campus of Shanghai University. All faculty members, Chinese and foreign alumni, previous foreign teachers, leaders of the partner institutes and representatives of the well-known Sino-Australia education institutes gathered together.
Professor Gong Siyi, Deputy Party Secretary, CPC and Vice President of Shanghai University, delivered a welcome speech to extend her warm welcome to the Chinese and foreign guests. She said that as the first Sino-Foreign cooperative business school in China, SILC Business School forged ahead, dared to reform and innovate by introducing international high-quality educational resources and creating a multicultural educational environment. More than SILC 15,000 alumni are actively engaged in all walks of life worldwide. They have won good reputation for SILC and Shanghai University. Over the past 25 years, supported by the two universities,SILC takes international talent nurturing as its core task, builds an excellent team of teaching and administration, establishes a sound quality assurance system. SILC is the model for Sino-foreign cooperation education.
Brooke Hartigan, Minister Counsellor of Australian Embassy in China, paid great compliments to SILC’s success for the past 25 years which was considered as a new era for Sino-Australia cooperation in higher education. On behalf of the Australian Consulate-General in Shanghai, Liu Bing, Deputy Consul-General of the Australian Consulate-General in Shanghai and Senior Business Investment Officer of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, sent her congratulations to the "Silver Marriage" celebration of SILC.
Andrew Parfitt, Provost and Senior Vice-President of UTS, reviewed the history and journey of running SILC since 1994. On behalf of the two universities, President Gong Siyi and President Andrew Parfitt exchanged gifts for the 25th anniversary of cooperation.
Tang zhenfu, Deputy Director of the Academic Exchange and Research Department of China Education Association for International Exchange,
and Professor Lyu kangjuan, Dean of SILC, announced the official commencement of the China-Australia Cooperative Education Union.
Professor Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Center of East China Normal University, delivered a keynote speech entitled "More constructive and positive China-Australia relations", which explored the history and foundation of the friendly exchanges between China and Australia. The speech also discussed a more promising future and more expectations as a result of the long standing cooperative history between the two counties.
Professor Lyu Kangjuan, Dean of Shanghai University SILC Business School made a theme speech with a title "Together, we can change the future" , which made a comprehensive summary of the process in running the school in 25 years. She also introduced the plans for the future development of the school.
At the end of the ceremony, Tang Wenming, graduated in 1995, on behalf of all the alumni who donated in the "Light up SILC" donation project, presented a cheque of 250,000 yuan to Dean Lyu Kangjuan. He also donated 10,000 complementary post cards made on a personalized app to the school.
A seminar on the case studies of Sino-Australian cooperative education was held in Room 508 Wenbo building in the afternoon. Organized by the Australian Research Center of Shanghai University, the seminar attracted all members from more than 30 universities and institutions in China to attend the first meeting held by Sino-Australian Cooperative Education Union.
In accordance with the course models, meetings are divided into several sections, including warm-up games, topics sharing and interactive discussions to exchange ideas on Sino-Australian cooperative education.
Wu Heling, Dean of Central China Normal University Wollongong Joint Institute made a speech on "Opportunities and Challenges in 2 + 0 mode of Postgraduate Education in Sino-Foreign Cooperation" . The speech started with the provision of some basic information of the Wollongong Joint Institute to further discuss issues on Sino-Foreign cooperation in school running, the improvement of the quality of enrollment, scientific majoring allocation, the integration of cultivating intellectuals and the quality control of the Sino-Western cooperative education.
Dr. Kuang Qun, Deputy Director of the English Department of SILC Business School, made a speech on the topic of “Creating gold courses under Sino-Australian cooperation to further develop students’ international competence”. She introduced the school's distinctive English education model which centers around cultivating students' international competitiveness. In addition, she also mentioned that the Sino-Australian joint efforts to create a "gold course" will form an English learning environment featured by total immersion of language learning for students.
During the tea break time, the panel had a discussion on the following five topics-"how to guarantee the teaching quality of Chinese and foreign teachers" , "how to improve classroom teaching in cooperative education", "how to promote an internationalized local campus", "how to effectively communicate with the partner school" and "the spillover effects of Sino-Australia cooperation in education ".
In the last session, Prof. Hu Xiaohan, deputy dean of SILC, used SILC as an example to talk about how to promote the sustainable development of a quality assurance system with international accreditation. AACSB accreditation has improved the development and innovation of SILC’s institutional system, including the innovative faculty management and the establishment of an education quality assurance system.
The Alumni Association of SILC Shanghai University held the fifth council conference and the first alumni council meeting at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. The board of directors discussed two major topics on alumni information collection and school-enterprise cooperation. Tang Dingqiang introduced the AACSB accreditation and described the roles of alumni in the process of the accreditation, inviting all alumni to witness this significant process with SILC.
The exciting 25th anniversary of SILC has come to an end. SILC now is facing a new starting point and a new journey ahead. We all look forward to a better future for SILC!
