On September 20th, the opening ceremony of the 2020 students of Houston International Institute, Dalian Maritime University was successfully held in the Zhongyuan Hall. Vice President Zhao Youtao, heads of the both Chinese and American sides of the college, representatives of teachers and student leaders attended the ceremony. The ceremony was carried out simultaneously online and offline. 175 new 2020 students joined the event together with 139 parents in the cloud. The ceremony was presided over by Zhang Jinlei, Dean of the International Union Institute.
On behalf of the school, Zhao Youtao warmly welcomed the freshmen of Houston International Institute and encouraged students to strive for the first place based on the DMU’s profound 111-year history, and study diligently in the rare opportunity of the school's internationalization. He hopes that every new student could endeavour to study, cultivate morals, judge correctly, and be pragmatic, and become a socialist builder and successor with ideals, skills, feelings and responsibilities from today.
Professor Liu Zhijie, Professor Cui Chunyi, and Associate Professor Zhang Jingbo, heads of 3 programmes, respectively introduced the characteristics and advantages of the programmes to the students, and gave a brief account for the methods of professional learning and cross-disciplinary integration. The leader of the English faculty team, Professor Cheng Xin from the School of Foreign Languages, delivered a speech on behalf of all the teachers by theme of "Pursuing Dreams". She launched a "three-month challenge" to the students in unpretentious words, guiding everyone to work hard and surpass themselves. Teacher Huai Luheng, the head teacher of Class 2 in E. E. Program, addressed on behalf of the head teachers. He shared with the students his valuable experience of undergraduate studies in another Chinese-foreign cooperative-run institution. He reminded students to pay attention to process of learning and the impact of academic performance on personal development.
Cui Yuexin, from E. E. Program, spoke as a representative of the freshmen, expressing the determination of all freshmen to welcome their own campus life with a youthful and vigorous attitude.
Dr. Sun, UH dean of Houston International Institute, held a video conference at the ceremony. Joseph W. Tedesco, the dean of Cullen Institute of Engineering, JR Rao, the dean of Cullen Institute of Engineering and Pradeep Sharma, the chair of ME attended the meeting through a pre-recorded video. Badri Roysam, the chair of EE and Roberto Ballarini, the chair of CE, Dr. Li Bingbing form college of foreign languages in DMU and currently based in the UH and the deputy of abroad students in UH attended this meeting. Ma Huiyi from EE on behalf of freshmen in Houston International Institute had an online quick chat with teachers in English. All those who attended the meeting showed sincere welcomes to our students and expressed great expectations to our students’ bright future.
In the meanwhile, the staff of Houston International Institute communicate with our students. Zhang Jian, youth league secretary of Houston International Institute and Yang Wenyao, the part-time counsellor expressed expectation on how to be a qualified college student and how to transit from high school students and college freshmen.
Finally, Zhang Jinlei summarized the ceremony and elaborated on the initial goal and the future development. She hoped our freshmen could grow up in line with the institute, looking at the outside world, being patriotic, burdening the historical mission and the living up to the time.
In addition, our institute showed the video clip of military training and welcoming party with our students, and delivered the handbook of how to learn English well-prepared by English faculty team to facilitate English study.
College of International Collaboration
(Houston International Institute)
