On October 16, 2015, Joseph Klafter, President of Tel Aviv University, visited Peking University (PKU), accompanied by Rony Goldstein, Director of the Headmaster's Office, and Michal Schwartz and Li Yifei, officials in charge of cultural, academic and inter provincial affairs of Israel Embassy to China. Lin Jianhua, President of Peking University, Gao Song, Vice President of Peking University, Wu Hong, Dean of School of Life Science, Deng Xingwang, Dean of Modern Agriculture College of Peking University, Ou Yang Xiaoling, Vice Dean of Modern Agriculture College of PKU, along with officials of the Office of International Relations, received the guests at Lin Huxuan.
After exchanging warm greetings, they went straight to the first point, which regarded exchange on three levels, that was short-term summer school for undergraduates, long-term exchange program on year basis, and finally faculty exchange. They mentioned that exchanged graduate students would get financial support when paying for dorms and the program would be tuition free. President Lin said PKU had been advertising the School of Life Science and the School of Math of Tel Aviv University to undergraduates of PKU, and lab-to-lab collaboration was expected. President Klafter also expressed great willingness to send students and faculty of Tel Aviv University to PKU, so that they could get a vision of China.
Prof. Wu Hong added that presently the participants of the meeting were just pioneers of communication between the two universities and scale of exchange had been very limited. She hoped to see more students being exchanged in the future and barriers could be broken eventually, which would be beneficial to both sides. Speaking of breaking barriers, President Lin mentioned about a new method of teaching that already existed and had proved to be successful. Some universities have opened online real-time courses, so that students from different districts and different time zones can attend a class at the same time, while discussing about and commenting on what has been taught. Lin hoped that similar method could be applied to promote academic exchange between both universities.
Besides plans of expanding the range of exchange program, they also talked about agricultural issues. Presently Shandong Province is really interested in agriculture technology in Israel, and institutions in Shan Dong are planning to build faculty, purchase equipment and also apply for annual budget to carry on agricultural related research. And they have strong intentions to discuss the details with and learn from Israel universities. President Lin hoped Tel Aviv University could help them with this plan and Mr. Klafter showed his interest.
Toward the end of the meeting, both sides exchanged gifts and shook hands, hoping to promote school-level collaboration in the future. Mr. Klafter also congratulated PKU for having a Nobel Prize winner, and he anticipated President Lin to pay a visit to Israel on behalf of PKU next time.
Written by: Xin Yuan
