President S. Joe Qin Attended the 120th Anniversary Celebration Activities of Central China Normal University
President S. Joe Qin of Lingnan University was invited to attend the 120th anniversary celebration activities of Central China Normal University (CCNU) on 1-2 October. During the occasion, he also met up with Professor Xia Lixin, Secretary of the Party Committee of CCNU and participated in the"CCNU Forum" and the ‘’Chinese and Foreign University Presidents Forum’’ respectively.
In the morning of 1 October, President Qin was invited to attend the"CCNU Forum" and gave a presentation with the theme"Dialogue with CCNU students on internationalization of higher education’’, moderated by CCNU’s Vice President Peng Shuangjie. During the presentation, President Qin shared with more than 100 faculty members and students from the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education the changes in the development of higher education in the United States and compared it with the evolution of higher education in China. Taking Lingnan University as an example, President Qin elaborated on the features of the liberal arts education, saying that the future of Lingnan’s liberal arts education will be positioned as a ‘’research-oriented liberal arts university in the digital era’’. During the Q&A session, President Qin dealt with all questions about generative artificial intelligence and the future direction of higher education, which were of much concern to the faculty members and students. He believed that both AI and GPT were just tools, just like calculators in the early days, but people were always the core.
Afterwards, President Qin met with Professor Xia Lixin, Secretary of the Party Committee of CCNU. He offered his heartiest congratulations to the University on its 120th anniversary and its admirable contributions to development of education in China. He said that the history of CCNU and Lingnan University shared a lot of similarities, and he hoped that the two universities could strengthen collaborations in areas of education technology and big data in the future. Secretary Xia was very delighted to have President Qin and his delegation joining the celebration activities of CCNU. He introduced to them the latest development of CCNU, saying that there were plenty of scopes for CCNU and Lingnan to work together. He looked forward to stepping up collaborations in terms of breath and depth between the two universities.
In the afternoon of 2 October, President Qin attended ‘’Chinese and Foreign University Presidents Forum’’, and delivered a speech with the theme "Nurturing of talents in the higher education sector’’ in the symposium on"Identifying and nurturing innovative talents.’’ He shared with the attending presidents from universities in China and overseas Lingnan University’s unique liberal arts education and the approach it used to facilitate whole-person development.
During the event, President Qin also met and exchanged views with President Zhang Pingwen of Wuhan University and President You Zheng of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
