Lu Gang, Chair of HUST Committee, met Prof. Robert Thomas, the dean of College of Liberal Arts & Sciences of Wayne State University WSU in Washington, the capital of US, on April 23rd.
As the executive director of the Confucius Institute of WSU, Thomas made a detailed description about the Confucius Institute based on joint efforts, extending his thanks for the close attention of China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and great support from HUST, its partner in this program.
On behalf of HUST, Lu Gang greatly approved the progress made by the Confucius Institute, remarking that promoting Chinese Mandarin to the world is a great undertaking, an impetus for the communication between different cultures, and a stride in building a peaceful world. Meanwhile, he spoke highly of the achievements of WSU Confucius Institute and the popularization of Chinese Mandarin within two years, and regarded the Confucius Institute as the platform for Chinese Language Culture popularization, Sino-US culture communication and the cooperation between two universities.
He highly commended WSU's attention to the Confucius Institute, Prof. Thomas favor in China and Chinese culture, and the friendly and fruitful cooperation between both sides of the Confucius Institute.
In the meeting, Thomas and Lu agreed that the two universities should widen their communication and cooperative channel, putting forward cross-culture communication in the summer vacation involving students from both universities. For one thing, students from WSU, together with HUST, can be invited to go to Chinese remote countryside and poverty stricken areas by means of English Summer Camps. For another, HUST students are to be invited to Detroit, along with WSU students, holding Mathematics Summer Camp and Chinese Mandarin Summer Camp for the American students from urban poor families. For which, Lu Gang hoped, the faculty of Confucius Institute could make plans in a rapid, efficient and practical way.
The related leaders from Personnel Department, International Exchange Center and Confucius Institute attended this meeting.
