On March 20th, the international meeting on the evaluation of the first-level subject, foreign languages and literature of Zhejiang University was held in the Building East 5 of Zijingang Campus. The evaluation witnessed the attendance of experts and scholars with high reputation, among whom, Professor Jonathan Webster, a functional linguist from City University of Hong Kong, led the panel. There were four other experts in the panel, namely, Professor Wolfgang Teubert, a corpus linguist from University of Birmingham; Professor Galin Tihanov from Queen MaryUniversity of London, and academician of Academia Europaea; Professor Li Defeng, director of Center for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition at University of Macau and Professor Kay L. O’Halloran, a famous scholar on multimoding research at Curtin University. After serious discussions, the panel reached a consensus that the evaluation result was “Excellent”.
The meeting hosted by Professor Cheng Le, deputy dean of School of International Studies began at 9 am. Professor Ye Gongyin, deputy dean of Graduate School, delivered aspeech in English and granted letters of appointment to the experts. Then, Professor Cheng Gong, dean of School of International Studies gave a report on the basic situation of degree authorization unit of foreign languages and literature, including the history of the SIS, subject development,research, teaching capacity, student cultivation, status quo and achievements.
After that, accompanied by Dean Cheng Gong as well as Deputy Dean Fang Fan, the experts visited the Lab of Translation and Localization Technology. Associate professor He Wenzhong introduced computer-assisted translation and related achievements. Later on, experts attended a lecture together with students. The lecture on language testing by Professor He Lianzhen, with vivid examples and passionate words, won the applause from all the members in class. Then, experts visited the Laboratory of Language Cognition. After giving the knowledge and related indexes of ERP and eye movement equipment, Professor Wang Xiaoluled the experts to do an on-the-spot survey.
At 14:30, experts, students and teachers got together to have a formal discussion. Hosted by Professor Jonathan Webster, it witnessed the questions from the experts and the answers from students and teachers on the basics of the subject. A lot of constructive suggestions were proposed, including team construction, teaching capacity and equipment, student cultivation, academic exchanges as well as learning experience. The panel reached a final evaluation report after the discussion for about one hour.
At 16:30, the final sitting of the international evaluation was held at Room 201, with the presence of Professor Ren Shaobo, executive vice-president of Zhejiang University; Professor Cheng Gong, dean of SIS; Professor Chu Chaofu, secretary of the CPC committee of the SIS; Professor Fang Fan and Professor Cheng Le, vice deans of the SIS; Mrs. He Lianzhen, professor in charge of the second-level subject; Professor Fan Jieping; Professor Hao Tianhu, assistant to the dean as well as student and representatives ofthe departments.
Firstly, Professor Jonathan Webster, head of the panel announced the evaluation “Excellent”, winning warm applause from students and teachers present. On behalf of the panel, he gave an evaluative conclusion on the construction of foreign languages and literature from talent team construction, international horizon and research results, andbelieved this first-level subject is high in international standards and promising in its development. After that, experts offered valuable suggestions, among which some were highly appreciated, such as setting up international courses for foreign students and broadening interdisciplinary studies. In the end, Professor Ren Shaobo, executive vice-president, gave an important address. At the first place, he extended his sincere thanks to theexperts for accepting the invitation and giving an evaluation on foreign languages and literature, this first-level subject of Zhejiang University. He also thanked them for their affirmation of the subject and hoped the experts would give further support to its development. Meanwhile, he highly appreciated that foreign language subject had made fruitful achievements in the past few years and wished that SIS would seriously take the suggestions of the panel and apply them in the blueprint. He also hoped that the SIS would give play to disciplinary advantages and become the bellwether of Zhejiang University in international construction, including talent cultivation, faculty construction and academic research.
After the meeting, the representatives took a group photo.
It is the first international evaluation in the history of foreign languages and literaturesubject of Zhejiang University. Against the backdrop that Zhejiang University is striding towards being a first-class university with first-class disciplines, such an evaluation would certainly exert a positive impact. The SIS did great preparations for this evaluation, and got favorable comments from the experts with warm reception.
School of International Studies
March 21, 2018
