On December 7, Zhiyuan delegation led by Mei Hong, Secretary of General Party Branch Committee of Zhiyuan College, and John Edward Hopcroft, Chair Professor of John Hopcroft Class and Turing Award winner, visited ShanghaiTech University. Professor Mianheng Jiang, President of ShanghaiTech University, met with John Hopcroft; and Professor Jie Yin, Executive Vice President and Provost of ShanghaiTech University, hosted an exchange forum. Heads of relevant departments, professors and student representatives participated in the discussion, accompanied by Professor Weiliang Xia and Feng He, vice deans of Zhiyuan College.
John Hopcroft is a world-renowned master of computer algorithms and one of the world's first computer scientists. He is a Member of the American Academy of Sciences, The Academy of Engineering, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, honored with the Turing Award in 1986. With more than 50 years of teaching experience, he has been involved in the reform and exploration of computer talents training in Chinese universities for nearly 10 years.
John Hopcroft mentioned that universities should focus on education and basic research. Undergraduate education is the foundation of university education and a crucial factor in evaluating the success and performance of university education. Therefore, it is particularly important to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching and cultivate outstanding undergraduates with international competitiveness. Professor Jiang agreed with Professor John Hopkins croft's opinion and pointed out that ShanghaiTech attaches great importance to the cultivation of undergraduate students. The university has established a permanent professor system and an undergraduate cultivation system with solid foundation, small-scale teaching and international visions, to guarantee the high-quality development of undergraduate education by system, mechanism and resource input.
Jie Yin introduced faculty construction, student training and scientific research progresses, and the innovative measures and important achievements of Shanghai Tech in recent years. After learning about the training philosophy and teaching characteristics of ShanghaiTech University, John Hopcroft had a face-to-face communication with representatives of professors and 10 undergraduates of the School of Information science and Technology.
In the exchange, he urged undergraduates to explore their own interests in scientific research, and encouraged students to increase their experience in multicultural exchange and maintain their curiosity and creativity.
