Oxford and Yale Students Visit Lingnan for “Global Strategic Leadership Symposium 2018”
In January, sophomores from SYSU’s Lingnan (University) College visited either Yale University or Oxford University to participate in the “Global Strategic Leadership Symposium 2018.” From March 12th to 16th, Lingnan College hosted students from Oxford’s St. Edmund Hall and Yale University at the Guangzhou campus. The theme of this year’s symposium was “Social Entrepreneurship”. During the week, students from Oxford, Yale and Lingnan went sightseeing downtown, visited several companies in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and made excellent project presentations to close out the annual event.
On the morning of March 12th, Lingnan College held a welcome session for students from Oxford and Yale. During the session, Lingnan’s Dean Assistant Mr. Cao Xiaping and Professor Wang Yanming made an opening speech and gave short lectures on Chinese economic development. Prof. Wang Yanming discussed the impact current international situations are having on the relations between China and the United States. After the speech, professors exchanged ideas with students in a Q&A portion. After the cordial welcome, our visitors, accompanied by their Lingnan teammates, took a tour in the lush and lively south campus of Sun Yat-sen University.
On March 13th, a group of students led by Professor Xu Luodan and other teachers from Yale and Oxford visited Guangzhou Baiyun Pharmaceutical manufacturer. The visit to the herb library of Baiyun provided students with a broader view of the development of ancient Chinese medical treatment. By meeting and talking with managers in Baiyun, students not only learned about how to strike a balance between enterprises’ social responsibilities and economic profits, but also gained fist-hand knowledge of the modern scientific application of traditional Chinese medicine.
On March 14th, a big group of students and faculty from Lingnan, Oxford, and Yale traveled to Shenzhen to visit enterprises such as DJI, Tencent, and BYD. They learned about the cutting-edge technology of UVAs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and robots and of the popular interpersonal communication applications QQ and WeChat. Students had the chance to observe different styles of corporate cultures and to share their insights on technology’s influence on life and corporate social responsibility with many corporate representatives. From the trip to Shenzhen, the students obtained more first-hand knowledge about China’s high-tech and innovation industries.
On the morning of March 15th, the students attended the Chinese Folk Art Workshop to have a taste of Chinese culture and performing arts. The students enjoyed designing and creating their own paper-cutting as well as making unique Beijing Opera masks. Later that day, Lingnan’s alumnus Ms. Huang Xiaoyin gave a lecture named “Some thinking on customer psychology for social entrepreneurship”, which led to a lively discussion on the combination of daily life and enterprise publicity.
On March 16th, The Final Project Presentation Contest of the Global Leadership Program was held in the Lingnan Hall. The nine groups consisted of students from Oxford and Yale and Lingnan all delivered inspiring and insightful presentations to close their team projects of this year’s theme. The panel of judges consisted of Prof. Robert Wilkins, Senior Tutor of St. Edmund Hall of Oxford University, Dr. Andrew Junker, Director of Yale-China Association, and Lingnan’s professor Wang Yanming and professor Peng Yulei. The group, consisting of students from Oxford and Lingnan, with the Feifang Chocolate enterprise as the study object, won the best team presentation award. Lingnan student Zheng Jue, Yale students Grace Jin and Vicky Liu won the best individual performance award.
On the evening of March 16th, the students participated in the last activity on the program’s schedule, a farewell dinner. Associate Dean Prof. Zhang Bin gave awards to the winners of the presentation contest. Student representatives from Oxford, Yale and Lingnan shared their feeling and takeaways from this exciting program. Prof. Robert Wilkins and Dr. Andrew Junker also shared a few words during the event and sent best wishes to all the students. During the farewell dinner, students from Lingnan displayed their talents on the stage, including dancing, singing and playing traditional Chinese instruments.
Although the program ended, the friendship among Lingnan, Yale and Oxford students will long live. As one of the most important practices of Lingnan for improving international education and cross cultural communication, the global leadership program will keep appealing to more excellent young students in the future.
