Invited by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, His Excellency the Right Honorable David Johnston, Governor-General of Canada paid a state visit to China from October 18 to 24, 2013. During his visit in China, he came to host a round-table discussion on “Innovative Approaches to Graduate Studies” at Huaxi Campus of Sichuan University on October 22 and delivered a speech on Education, Innovation and Prosperity to our faculty and students.
Governor-General of Canada David Johnston’s first stop was No. 8 Teaching Building of West China School of Medicine SCU. This teaching building, originally called Building of Dentistry and Medicine, was completed in 1928 with the donation of Toronto University. Standing in front of the bird’s eye view photo of our hospital, President Xie Heping, SCU and President Li Weimin of West China School of Medicine briefed the friendship between our hospital and Canada and the status-quo of our hospital to Governor-General. Then, President Xie Heping held an official meeting in the VIP room, with presidents from ministerial-level universities in Southwest China invited by Canadian Consulate General in Chongqing.
When talking about the importance of education and innovation, his insightful ideas impressed the audience a lot. He himself fully believed the power of education: it can better our life, change world, bring us more choices, make a country and her people more civilized and dignified. For university students and educators nowadays, we shall be aware of the significance of being innovative and somewhat critical thinkers. Meanwhile, it is also crucial for the society to cultivate more and more innovative talents.
In terms of innovation in education, he advocated cooperation among people with different background or/and from different countries is sure to inspire each other’s creativity, in particular, the fruitful cooperation and exchanges among universities between our two countries showed an excellent example. He emphasized, as a well-known university in both China and the world, Sichuan University has established active partnerships with many Canadian universities, hoping that scholars and students from two countries can work together, learn from each other, expand exchanges and cooperation, enhance mutual understanding and trust and jointly promote cooperation and innovation in education so as to achieve common prosperity.
After the speech, both Canadian and Chinese scholars including Dr. Edy Wong, Associate Dean International from University of Alberta School of Business, the Honorable Perrin Beatty, P.C. President and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Dana Fox, Founder and Vice-Chair of CleverU Corporation and Prof. Wang Xiaolu and Prof. Moe M.S. Cheung from Sichuan University held a panel discussion.The topics cover “how online education and new technologies in the delivery of education enhance innovation in the universities as
