“I’m very honored to stand here to introduce the ten years’  Growth of FAFU for the teachers and students of FAFU. When I see your young faces, I remember the situation when I came to FAFU for the first time, I was also young at that time.” In the afternoon of March 12th, laughter and applause constantly came from Chang Cheng Conference Center of FAFU. Professor Claude Caldwell, the vice Dean of College of Agriculture of Dalhousie University accepted the invitation of President Lan Siren, came to FAFU and gave a speech titled “the 10 Years of Growth with FAFU” for teachers and students of FAFU. The lecture was jointly organized by the Department of Publicity and Overseas Education College of FAFU. Professor Wang Songliang, the vice Dean of Overseas Education College hosted the meeting and made the translation. President Lan Siren and more than 200 teachers and students of FAFU listened to the speech.   

The lecture was held in Chang Cheng Conference Center of FAFU 

Professor Claude gave the speech

Professor Claude Caldwell introduced the changes of ecological environment of campus, human landscape and cooperative personnel of FAFU in the past 10 years through a large number of pictures that he had taken and retained during his working at FAFU for more than 10 years. Meanwhile, he also presented, by both pictures and texts, the origin and history of the “2+2” cooperation model of undergraduate education between FAFU and the College of Agriculture of Dalhousie University. 
During the last 10 years, what has changed? And what is the same? What is the future development direction of China-Canada cooperative programs? He affectionately reviewed the good cooperative relationship between the two universities in the past and took a look ahead about the future of the development. 
During the last 10 years, Fujian Agricultural University changed into Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University, and Nova Scotia Agricultural College was incorporated into Dalhousie University; the Sino-Canadian Joint Program also evolved from the primary “FAFU-NSAC ‘2+2’Program” into two China and foreign school running programs, and the China and Canada cooperative programs reached 4.
 During the last 10 years, the leaderships’ commitment of two universities, the direction of cultivating the talents with international vision, and the cooperative relationship of two sides were not changed; During the last 10 years, what have been apparently changed are the infrastructure, the attitude and skills of students and the self-confidence of the faculty of FAFU etc. , but the really profound changes were the mechanism and content of the running-school; at the same time, the joining of Chinese students made the campus of Dalhousie University become more diversified,  the students of FAFU showed to be more international in the agricultural building work at some communities surrounding Fuzhou, and the expectation and motivation of the students of FAFU were also growing.  

The students on the scene asked questions to Professor Claude

Professor Claude also presented about the coming cooperation in the next period. He said that, recently, the FAFU-DALHOUSIE “2+2” Undergraduate cooperation Program was improved both in quantity and quality, and a third major of landscape architecture of undergraduate level was newly added to the Program, which would start the formal enrollment next year; the two universities have formally initiated the Sino-Canadian International College Project; we could also expected a “2+1” graduate students’ cultivation program and other coming projects for the exchanges and cooperation on the research and cultivation of graduate students; “Last year, when President Lan Siren visited Dalhousie University, he and President Richard Florizone, respectively on behalf of FAFU and Dalhousie University, signed a memorandum of understanding about the inter-collegiate cooperation, which would further promote and broaden the cooperation and exchanges between the two universities. I expect more about the cooperation in the next 10 years on the basis of the last 10 years, which would develop faster and better. Here, I would like to express my great gratitude for the people of FAFU, who have made great contributions for promoting the cooperation and exchanges between the two universities, and I hope the future cooperation between the two universities would be more brilliant!” the speech of Professor Claude Caldwell gained loud applause and cheers on the spot.

 Professor Claude Caldwell, at present, holds the office of Vice Dean of College of Agriculture of Dalhousie University. He had joined in the CIDA-funded China-VietNam project for sustainable development since 1998, as a chief expert of Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA), and cooperated with FAFU, the Chinese host of the program (Professor You Minsheng was the Chinese chief expert). After the concluding of this program, he Launched then, a new educational cooperation program between the College of Agriculture Dalhousie University (once was NSAC) and FAFU, that is the “FAFU-DAL ‘2+2’ undergraduate education program”. Due to his contribution to the sustainable development and agricultural educational cooperation of fujian province and his qualification, he was employed as a visiting professor of FAFU in 2006. Due to the needs of cultivating international talents of the “FAFU-DALAC ‘2+2’ undergraduate education program”, he introduced the public course 《Agricultural Ecology》 of students of College of Agriculture of DAL to FAFU. From March 2004, Professor Claude Caldwell began to perform dual responsibilities: the head of the Canadian side of “FAFU-DALAC‘2+2’ educational program and the visiting professor of FAFU. He came to FAFU every spring to teach two introduced courses 《Agricultural Ecology》 and 《Program Research and Discussion》. He made outstanding contributions to the development of Sino-Canadian educational cooperation program, the teaching of《Agricultural Ecology》course, the scientific research and the broadening of intercollegiate exchanges outside the framework of the Sino-Canadian program and so on.

Correspondant: Publicity Department   Zheng Wei

Photogragher: Publicity Department  Cao Jiayi

Translator: Zheng Wei

Auditor: College of Crop Science   Lu Yunhai