In the morning of January 4th 2017, the opening ceremony of the 6th Winter Institute was held successfully in the New Black Box of the Huanshan Road campus. President of STA Huang Changyong made a speech on the opening ceremony. Vice president Gong Baorong hosted the ceremony. This Winter Institute is also jointly organized by four top universities in America, which are Brown University, New York University, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The University of South California, after last year, once again sent professors to participate in the winter institute courses.
President Huang Changyong first welcomed all the professors and students who attended the Winter Institute. He them introduced the new campus which was is still under construction and the function and position of each campus. President Huang illustrated that STA will be targeting at being a platform university, and he truly hopes that professors from America can be part of that prospect.
Professor Claire Conceison from Massachusetts Institute of Technology spoke on behalf of the teachers. Claire Conceison studied at STA 25 years ago, she can speak fluent Chinese. She advises that everyone should use this opportunity to have a good time, to make friends, to break the boundaries and explore new things, and spend less time on phones and computers, and finally to gain something other than happiness and friendship in this Winter Insititute.
Student of Claire Conceison, Sabrine Ahmed Iqbal spoke on behalf of all the foreign students. She expressed her deep interest into Chinese culture and her own experience on cross-cultural communications as a Bangladeshi. PhD student Zhang Binyu spoke on behalf of all the Chinese students, she talked about her feelings and thoughts of attending the Winter Institute the second time.
After the opening ceremony, the students went on with their workshop and lectures, and started their 10-day’s course. It is not hard to tell that everyone can harvest some knowledge, friendship or future via this Winter Institute. (Written by Zou Wuping Picture by Jia Qi Edited by Rong Shu)
