Rice to host US-China University Presidents Roundtable

The presidents and chancellors of more than 50 major U.S. and Chinese universities will meet at Rice University June 21-22 to discuss global education, research collaboration and cultural exchange during the U.S.-China University Presidents Roundtable. Rice and the China Scholarship Council are co-hosting the event, at which Madame Liu Yandong, vice premier of the People’s Republic of China, will give the keynote address.

“Rice University is honored to welcome Vice Premier Liu along with Minister of Education Yuan Guiren, Vice Minister of Education Hao Ping and university presidents and chancellors from China and the United States,” President David Leebron said. “We have significantly expanded Rice’s international outreach to China as part of our Vision for the Second Century, and it is indeed an honor to host the U.S.-China University Presidents Roundtable and the highest-ranking Chinese official to ever visit our campus.”

The delegation of presidents arrives on the Rice campus June 21 in time for a banquet co-hosted by Leebron, University Representative Y. Ping Sun and China Scholarship Council Director-General Dr. Liu Jinghui; the participants will convene at the Baker Institute for Public Policy June 22 for the keynote address and then move to the Jones School of Business for a series of roundtable sessions. The invitation-only event will include Chinese dignitaries and members of the Houston and Rice communities.

During her keynote address, Liu is expected to discuss themes that she will also share with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry when she visits Washington, D.C, the next day to discuss programs between U.S. and Chinese educational institutions. Her speech will be followed by brief responses from the presidents of Peking, Tsinghua, Rice and New York universities.

Among the topics to be addressed during the roundtable sessions are the value of a liberal arts education, new frontiers for research collaboration and ways to improve higher education cooperation between the U.S. and China.

In addition to Rice, U.S. universities and other educational entities that will be represented at the roundtable include Carnegie Mellon University; Coursera; Emory University; Harvard University; Indiana University; Juilliard School; New York University; Texas A&M University; University of Arizona; University of California, Davis; University of California, Santa Barbara; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Chicago; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Maryland; University of Missouri; University of Nebraska Medical Center; University of Notre Dame; University of Pennsylvania; University of Southern California; University of Texas at Austin; Vanderbilt University; University of Washington; and Washington University in St. Louis.

Chinese universities that will be represented include Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing Normal University, Dalian University of Technology, East China Normal University, Fudan University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Jilin University, Nankai University, Northeast University, Peking University, Renmin University of China, Shandong University, Sichuan University, South China University of Technology, South University of Science and Technology of China, Sun Yat-sen University, Tianjin Conservatory of Music, Tianjin University, Tongji University, Tsinghua University, University of Hong Kong, University of Macau, Wuhan University, Xi’an Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University.

In 2013 the University of Chicago also hosted a U.S.-China University Presidents Roundtable, which Rice and Peking University co-hosted.