Harbin Institute of Technology

Reported By: ZHANG Yan

Photographed By: FENG Jian

Translated By: HU Yujia

Edited By: Jonathan Wylie

July 14th and 15th, on HIT’s campus, HIT and the University of Adelaide jointly organized the China-Australia University Summit on Teaching and Learning (CAUSTL), which was co-organized by the Ministry of Education of the PRC, China Scholarship Council, the C9 League, the Australian Embassy and the Group of Eight. Approximately 130 experts and scholars from 27 Chinese and Australian universities met together in Harbin to discuss the development of higher education and teaching under the context of globalization. The two presidents of the assembly, President of HIT, ZHOU Yu and Vice President of the University of Adelaide, Pascale Quester, signed the Declaration of Harbin, in order to further expand and promote the long-term friendly and cooperative relations between the two universities and related institutions in the field of teaching and student development.

President ZHOU gave a speech at the opening ceremony. In his speech he pointed out that teaching and training are the core functions of the university. He expressed his belief that cooperation within international education will become particularly important for the positive development of higher education on a global scale, and he praised the timing of this event. ZHOU explained that during the summit, participating experts and scholars would use presentations and group discussions to make exchanges regarding education and personnel training within the context of globalization. Additionally, President ZHOU articulated that HIT has always attached importance to exchanges and cooperation with domestic and international universities in the 90 years of the school’s history. As one of the organizers of this summit, he expressed sincere hopes that experts and scholars from China and Australia might have extensive exchanges during the meetings to strengthen each other’s cooperation in the aspects of teaching and learning, personnel training, scientific research and cultural exchanges, so that they could face new challenges of higher education in an era of globalization together.

The opening ceremony was presided over by the chairman of the program committee, Assistant President XU Xiaofei. The Minister Counsellor of the Australian Embassy Cathryn Hlavka, Vice President Pascale Quester and Deputy Inspector of Heilongjiang Provincial Education Department FANG Wenbin delivered speeches respectively at the opening ceremony.

Minister Counsellor Hlavka, Vice President of Tsinghua University YUAN Si, Vice President Quester, Assistant President XU and Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney, Derrick Armstrong successively made presentations at the conference.

In the group discussions, participants shared their models and methods in engineering education. They also shared experiences surrounding combining general and professional education, Small Private Online Courses (MOOC/SPOC) and online learning, views and practices in areas of international education and cross-cultural education based on project learning and group learning, as well as quality assessment and the protection of education.

During the closing ceremony, President ZHOU passed the flag of the summit to Vice President Quester. In both sides' closing speeches, they looked forward to the second session of the CAUSTL in Australia in 2015. Australian Chairman of the Program Committee, Pro Vice-Chancellor Kent Anderson introduced the plans for the next summit.

During the summit, the finals of the HIT-University of Adelaide Students' Science & Technology Competition were held. After the pre-selection, 12 teams of students from the two schools' fields of mechanical, electrical and computer engineering, entered the final round. Through the on-site review committee selection, the project, “Magic Square of Order Five Robot Based on Image Processing,” created by undergraduates from the HIT School of Electrical Engineering and Automation and School of Electronics and Information Engineering won the “Outstanding Award”. Another three projects won first prize, and eight projects won second prize. President ZHOU and Vice President Quester awarded certificates and trophies to the winning teams at the closing ceremony.