Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University visits Wuhan University

Apr 21, 2023 Clicks：

Author：Shi Xinyu & Wang Yihan  

On March 2, Scott MacEachern, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of Duke Kunshan University (DKU), visited Wuhan University (WHU) and met with Tang Qizhu, WHU Vice President. Wu Dan, Dean of the Undergraduate College, Li Xiaoshu and Liu Xiaoli, the director and the deputy director of the Office of International Affairs at WHU, Cao Yecheng, assistant professor of Art and Archaeology at DKU, and other officials attended the meeting.

Vice Chancellor MacEachern and Vice President Tang  engaged in discussions

DKU’s VC MacEachern briefly introduced the current stage of development of DKU’s academic disciplines and expressed his expectation for multi-dimensional cooperation with WHU. Vice President Tang fully affirmed the achievements of DKU in recent years. He said that “DKU had accomplished a host of astonishing results in developing its disciplines.” He also indicated that among all partners in the U.S., Duke University has built up the strongest bond and closest partnership with WHU, and that DKU is the only Sino-Fpreign joint-venture university jointly established by WHU.  As a well-known university with over a hundred years of history, WHU will make full use of its key disciplines and work jointly with Duke University to enhance the comprehensive strength of DKU.

After the meeting, MacEachern gave a special talk titled Archaeology: Identity and Ancient DNA at WHU’s School of History, offering academic insights on the problems of archaeology’s and paleo-genomics’ methods for deciphering human DNA and the information gap which lies therein. He also called for an inter-disciplinary approach to integrate these two subjects. In the subsequent Q&A session, MacEachern exchanged academic views with Li Yinghua, Vice Dean of the Literature and Archaeological Institute for Yangtze Civilization, Zhang Yanyan, Vice Dean of the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, and other scholars and students.

DKU is a non-profit Sino-US joint-venture university jointly founded by WHU and Duke University. It was established in September 2013 with the approval of the Chinese Ministry of Education. DKU welcomed its first students onto postgraduate degree and undergraduate Global Learning Semester programs in 2014., and launched its four-year bachelor’s degree program in 2018. In 2020, DKU was included in the “Outline of Regional Integrated Development Plan for the Yangtze River Delta” issued by the State Council, which aims to build a demonstration area of international cooperative education. This year is the 10th anniversary of the establishment of DKU.

Photo by Zou Pengzhi

Rewritten by Wang Yihan

Edited by Li Jing, Sun Zhiwei, Zhang Yilin, Sylvia, Xibingqing