[News from the News Center] On the morning of April 29, local time in the eastern part of the United States, the 2018 the Council meeting of Confucius Institute of the University of Toledo (UT) was held at UT. Professor John Barrett, Chairman of Council of the UT Confucius Institute, US Director Jim Hartung, Ms. Nancy Staub, Professor Liu Hongmin, YSU former President, Chinese Director Teng Guosheng, Zhang Wenli, and Dean of the Confucius Institute and Chinese Dean Zheng Zhanguo attended the meeting. Professor Scott Molitor, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Teaching at UT, and Professor Matthew Franchetti and Professor Han Decai, Director of YSU International Exchange Center attended the meeting. Ms. Sara Clark, Director of the Center for International Affairs at UT presided over the meeting, and Liu Hongmin and John Barrett delivered speeches respectively.
The meeting reviewed and approved the 2018 annual work report and annual financial budget of the Confucius Institute at the University of Toledo, and planned and deployed the main tasks of the Confucius Institute in 2019.
The meeting in session
John Barrett said that the Confucius Institute at UT not only promoted the exchange of language and culture between the United States and China, but also played a positive role in promoting the development of relations between the two universities, the two cities and even the two countries. In 2018, the Confucius Institute at UT held more than 100 events, serving nearly 13,000 people, and more than 6,000 people registered to study Chinese language, which suggested that the Confucius Institute is very important to UT and its community. I hope that the Confucius Institute will continue to serve the universities and community.
John Barrett highly praised YSU's strong support for the Confucius Institute and expressed its willingness to cooperate with YSU in runNing the Confucius Institute. In his speech, Liu Hongmin strongly affirmed the achievements of the Confucius Institute and the Council of UT in the past year. He said that YSU will continue to support the development of the Confucius Institute and overcome difficulties encountered. We hope that the Confucius Institute will continue to play a role as a bridge to promote the in-depth cooperation between YSU and UT.
At the meeting, the two sides reported on the implementation of some of the proposals raised at the last meeting: the responsibilities of the members of the Confucius Institute at the University of Toledo were confirmed; the list of advisory groups of the two councils was approved and the related responsibilities and following activities were discussed; both parties launch a special scholarship for exchange students, which is used to fund YSU students to study at UT. For the first time two Chinese international education majors are selected to teach at the Confucius Institute as a Chinese language teacher volunteer. The two sides agreed to hold a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Confucius Institute at the end of September this year. A series of celebration activities will be held, and YSU will send a delegation to attend the event.
Professor William Ayres (fourth from the right), Associate Provost of UT received YSU delegation.
After the annual meeting, YSU delegation held a work meeting with representatives of UT School of Engineering and reached many consensuses on deepening exchanges and cooperation between the two universities. The two sides believe that under the background of new engineering construction, the two universities, especially the engineering disciplines, have prospects for cooperation. It is recommended to carry out joint programs for students in majors such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, in machinery, materials and automatic control. In the professional fields of chemistry and other fields, both sides will carry out scientific research cooperation and jointly apply national major scientific research projects. The two sides also discussed specific steps and measures to implement the programs.
[Translated by Lv Bo]
