U.S. Visit of Chinese Deans and Department Heads

Assisted by the American Chemical Society Committee on International Activities (IAC) and the Office of International Activities (OIA), from January 26-February 4, 2008, a group of five deans and department heads from leading higher education institutions in China (Peking University, Tsinghau University, Xiamen University, Nankai University, Nanjing University) to visits to the University of Toledo, MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. This program was designed for the participants to share information and experiences on how chemistry departments in both countries are organized to support teaching, research and service.

Front row (Left-to-Right): Hongjie Dai, Marinda Wu, Sherry Higdon,
Zi-Ling Xue Back row (Left-to-Right): Xinrong Zhang, Zijian Guo,
Song Gao, Peiqiang Huang, Peng Cheng

Additional aspects of the visit included arrangements for the deans to hear a presentation from Chemical Abstracts Service on “How Universities Use SciFinder to Support Research.”

The deans also met editors of ACS Nano, Organometallics, Chemistry of Materials, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Langmuir and JACS in two roundtables, scheduled in Boston and San Francisco. The aim of the roundtables was to provide a discussion space for the editors to learn more about the research activities at leading universities in China and for the deans to learn more about ACS journal editorial scopes and manuscript submission and review practices.

The visit culminated in a future actions breakfast in San Francisco to learn from this visit and ascertain steps to sustain the initiative. ACS President Bruce Bursten, ACS Board of Directors member, Marinda Wu, and ACS IAC chair, Nina McClelland participated in the visits.

Materials from the Visit

Program Book
View itineraries and learn more about participating universities
Photographs
See a slide show of images from the visit

Program Partners

Background

International Activities Committee members Dr. Nina McClelland and Dr. Herbert Kaesz worked with their colleague Dr. Ziling (Ben) Xue to make this visit a reality. Ben is a graduate of Nanjing University-Nanjing College of Pharmacy and is currently Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee. He had met several of the deans in the delegation during two trips to China in 2006, and presented the idea to IAC Subcommittee 2 during the 233rd ACS National Meeting in Chicago.

Although exchanges at the university presidential or chancellorial levels are common -- as are exchanges at the student, postdoctoral, and visiting scholar level -- the planned visit by a delegation of Chinese chemistry heads, chairs, or deans was unprecedented.

-- From an article by Dr. Herbert Kaesz in the November/December 2007 ACS International News.

Universities in the Delegation

Chinese Universities

This partial map of China shows the location of the
Chinese universities in the delegation

American Universities

Participating Journals

For more information, contact intlacts@acs.org.

U.S. Visit of Chinese Deans and Department Heads

Coverage of the Visit

Background

Universities in the Delegation

Participating Journals