（2019年9月8晚上7点）
亲爱的各位同学，尊敬的各位家长和老师，大家晚上好!
今天很高兴见到各位新同学，我代表771771威尼斯.cmApp的同事们热烈欢迎你们参加我们的开学典礼，加入771771威尼斯.cmApp！同时我也非常高兴看到我们很多家长，欢迎你们的到来,感谢你们对我们的信任，将你们的孩子托付给我们；我们一定不辜负你们的期望，我们一起将你们的孩子和我们的学生，培养成为国家的栋梁，培养成为德智体美劳全面发展的社会主义事业建设者和接班人！
考虑到今晚有很多来自利兹大学和771771威尼斯.cmApp的外籍教师，我下面用英文发言，请各位家长原谅，投影配有中文ppt。
Dear Students/Parents, Colleagues：a very warm good evening to you！
As the Dean of the Joint School, I am very pleased to welcome all our students to the opening ceremony on behalf of all my colleagues in the Joint School. You have joined a family of 756 students，more than 150 lecturers，16 administrative and support staff, and, of course, many more alumni from both Universities, such as the one of the 6 Noble Prize Winners from Leeds，Sir William Henry Bragg, with his son Sir Lawrence Bragg, won the Noble Prize in Physics in 1915（X-ray crystallograph）andone of the most famous Scientists from Southwest Jiaotong University，Mao Yisheng. You may also know that one of the famous singers, Zhang Guorong; he graduated from the University of Leeds with a PhD in Textile!
Now you have become a small chestnut！Again, congratulations!
This year is special. You are lucky, as the final cohort of our 4-year academic programmes and as such we now have a complete cycle and the beginning of a perfect circle. You will have the opportunities to learn from the first three cohorts of students, especially our final year students who will graduate and go to further studies andemployments.
Now let me briefly introduce our Joint School to you.
Our school combines the best of the east with the best of the west! Although we are based in Chengdu locally, the Joint School allows you to connect to the rest of the world through Leeds.
Our degree programmes are designed for our high-achieving students with the opportunity to benefit from an outstanding education and an exceptional student experience such that when you graduate you will be uniquely qualified to pursue your postgraduate studies or work effectively within industries around the world. For example, our lecturers come from Leeds, SWJTU and internationally recruited. You will have access to the combined facilities of the two Universities, including teaching resources, libraries and so on. Of course, it is tough and our students are expected to work hard to take the full advantage of such an excellent platform.
Our current student number is 1043 and among these, we have or will have 46 students based in Leeds for the 2+2 and 3+1 programmes. By the way,I was told some new students from other schools are planning to transfer to the joint school! Our students come from 21 provinces and consist of Han and 6 other ethnic groups. The quality of our intakes has improved steadily, for example, our cut-off this year is more than 30 points above our University point in Jilin Province. There are many unique features about our School, for example, one interesting statistics is the ratio of our female to male students, almost doubled compared with our engineering schools in SWJTU and almost trebled compared with Leeds.
We have achieved so much in a relatively short period of time of 3 years, from both our students and colleagues.Let me just mention a few:
We have done exceptionally well in our Party construction work to help students establish a clear vision for their study. We have come to the top in the last three years University evaluation and shared our experience at a number of national conferences.
We have exerted more and more influences on China-foreign cooperation in running schools (CFCRS) in China. In 2018, we became one of the ten chair organizations in China, representing the Southwest Region, with 8 organisations. The Joint School staff have given invited presentations in a number of national conferences.
Our students are also performing exceptionally well in our University.One of our 2016 cohort students from Mechanical Engineering Programme is the chairman of the Student Union in SWJTU! On May the 16th, the Joint School team defeated the School of Humanities and won the championship in the 21st “LeYan Cup”Debate Contest of Southwest Jiaotong University. The Joint School has earned many SWJTU’s“Top-Tens”: the ten best student unions, the ten best dormitories and the tenbest class representatives!
Finally, I would just like to say a few words of expectations from you.
Study hard：We have provided an excellent international platform, your parents have paid for your tuition fees, what about you? There are plenty of opportunities and you have bright futures, not only you will get the dual degrees but also with the international perspective, but you must be working hard to achieve these! There are 3 students who failed the progression in 2018, although this is only about 1%, for our School, the number is still too large!
Take initiatives：From the very beginning, you should set up goals, short term goals, long term goals and career aspirations! Some of you may wish to work at international companies while others may feel more inclined to continue their post-graduate studies inuniversities. Just take the university as an example, if you wish to pursue an academic career and become a professor at a university, you should plan to get a PhD Degree. To do your postgraduate study, you must achieve certain grades in your undergraduate degree programmes. This will then help you decide what your priorities are and your short-term goals are. We have a wonderful unique personal tutorial system, please talk to your personal tutors and make the best use of this system!
Self-disciplined：Universities are different from middle schools. There are plenty of free time and opportunities you can choose, but you must be well organized in making the best use of these opportunities. We do not allow you to use mobile phones in classes, so please do not use mobiles in classes! Our working language is ENGLISH! This means that you must be speaking English at all times in the Joint School. English study and Transnational English Education will be one of the main hurdles for you to overcome.
Be happy: I want you to be joyful, happy, lively and cheerful during your study. Go out and participate in sports games. Join student societies and associations and improve your overall skills! Take part in voluntary activities and let everyone see your social responsibility!
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to mention a few initiatives that we are currently focusing on.
Next year in 2020, we will be evaluated by the Ministry of Education, our goal is quite clear and we want to be the best, to excel in our Joint School. The year after next in 2021, professional organisations from UK will accredit our degree programmes and we will work closely with our colleagues from Leeds to ensure the professional standing of our courses.
We are currently developing joint PhD programmes so by the time you graduate, you will have the opportunities to go to Leeds for these exciting ventures.
Next year we will have our first cohort of students to graduate, and we are planning a grand degree ceremony. Sir Alan Langlands, the Vice-Chancellor from the University of Leeds, has agreed to come to Chengdu to confer the degree certificates to our students.
Next year,we will move into a new building, Building No 3. We will have more than 7248 square meters of space, with a state of art lecture theatres, small classrooms, and of course space for students to work on your innovative ideas!
We sincerely hope that your time in the Joint School is rewarding, exciting, and challenging. We look forward to working with you to ensure the success of your study with us. Together we make histories: Engineering your future and Engineering a better world.
Thank you very much!
