Pan Yunhe, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering visited WKU

On May 23^rd, Pan Yunhe, the academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Zhang Song, the deputy director of the office of the Chinese Academy of Engineering visited Wenzhou-Kean University. Wang Beijiao, Chairman of Board of Directors of Wenzhou-Kean University accompanied them for the visiting.

Mr. Pan and his colleagues first visited student dorms, No.2 Dining Hall and the College of Business and Public Management. Had served as President of Zhejiang University for 11 years, Mr. Pan puts special concerns on students living conditions in Sino-foreign universities. In student dorm area, he said the living environment for WKU students was even better than the graduate students from Zhejiang University. When visiting No.2 Dining hall, Mr. Pan showed his interest in the conditions of its running.

At the meeting, Mr. Wang introduced the graduates’ further development and the general condition of WKU. As a new Sino-US university, WKU has encountered many challenges since its founding date, and now was looking for Mr. Pan’s advice on the University’s future development, as he is an expert in science research area as well as an educator.

Mr. Pan said that it is extremely important to operate Wenzhou-Kean University as a great achievement of cooperation between Zhejiang Province and New Jersey State. He talked about his experience in Pittsburgh. “Pittsburgh is only a second-tier city in the US, however, it is full of energy and rapid development happens in every mainstream industry. One of the main reasons is that there are two good universities: Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh”. He linked this point to the future development of Wenzhou; he said, “Wenzhou is facing a critical period of industrial adjustment, and it needs research-oriented universities for support.” So he advised that WKU should aim at building a research-oriented university which can combine local features, focus on science research and serve local economic development. “To be a university which can make Wenzhou City and Zhejiang Province proud of and attracting students globally, will be the best recognition of the work we have done for this university.” Mr. Pan said.

Vice Chancellor of Wenzhou-Kean University Zheng Xiaodong, Vice Chancellor Xu Shuli, and Acting Executive Vice Chancellor Andrew Brannen also attended the meeting.