XJTLU Blog: Professor Simon Jones - July 2024
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At the closing of the academic year, Dean for Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU), Professor Simon Jones talks about the future offering for students at XJTLU and an insight into graduations.
In my last blog article, I provided an outline of XJTLU’s investment, growth and ambition and how this interfaced well and supported our own ambition to become a world top 100 university. I thought it would be timely to update on some of the activities we have been working on to support the mutual ambition of both institutions.
As many colleagues know, there have been many visits to XJTLU over the past months, primarily to articulate the value of an international study experience, especially at a research-intensive university such as Liverpool, which helps students progress onto the next stage of their career. These visits have been incredibility useful to help support and advise the students on the advantages of following an articulation route, in addition to helping to foster relationships between academic departments in both countries. This latter point is critically important to capitalise on international collaborative research which helps us on the road to achieving our Top 100 ambition. Feedback from staff at both institutions following these visits has been very positive, especially for those for whom this has been their first visit. We’re now digesting feedback from these to provide a framework from which to develop a structured visit plan for the next academic year. When complete, we’ll communicate this with Faculties and Schools, so all are aware of the commitments and opportunities ahead.
One visit held in late April involved the first mobility conference for students (pictured above), going through elements of the application process, and coinciding with XJTLU graduation ceremonies. XJTLU holds two sets of ceremonies each year, one in April and one in July, the former being predominately for postgraduates. These students will have most likely spent a majority, if not all their time at XJTLU, and it is an important event to mark the celebration of them obtaining a Liverpool degree at XJTLU.
Professor Joe Sweeney, APVCE from Science and Engineering (pictured below) was able to take part in the ceremony in April, meeting students, staff, and parents alike. This summer’s graduation will have more undergraduate focused ceremonies and many of those students will have spent two years living and studying in Liverpool studying on the 2+2 articulation route.
The option for students to study in Liverpool as part of their undergraduate degree is an attractive one and has helped XJTLU grow student numbers and quality over the years. Although students who are admitted to XJTLU have an idea of what they would like to study when enrolling, all take a common first year, the important milestone being the programme choice event in March where they choose their subject to study for their remaining time. Some of our staff attended this event for the first time this year and found it an incredibly useful way to talk to staff, students, and parents about the choices that they were making, and the advantages of following a pathway that allows them to articulate to Liverpool. Many of the discussions we’ve had with students and parents has been centered around the added value of the international experience at a research-intensive university and how this can prepare them for the next steps in their journey, be this to a Masters-level programme or employment. I’m very grateful to colleagues who have helped us to refine this proposition for this coming year, with one such initiative being the Move to Masters package. This suite of activities has been brought together to help support XJTLU students by signposting them on their journey to support their future ambitions to a Masters-level course at Liverpool or elsewhere. Initial feedback from XJTLU and students has been positive, and we hope this will further add to the international advantage that they will have once they come to Liverpool.
Students from XJTLU are obviously anxious about committing to coming to another country thousands of miles away from home to study for two years, and we’re putting more thought of how to develop more community events to support them, in addition to working with staff and students at XJTLU collaboratively whilst they’re at XJTLU to provide confidence and advice on the advantages of studying Liverpool. If you or your colleagues do have thoughts on how you could help us engage in this area do let us know, we’d love to hear from you to help us develop our partnership further.