On October 30th, 2012, Dean Gerardo Gonzalez from the School of Education, Indiana University (SE-IU) and Director and Professor Heidi Ross from the Center of East Asia visited our college. During the 5 days, both sides discussed comprehensive cooperation and communication and signed a cooperative agreement. In the morning on November 1st, the Agreement ceremony was successfully carried out in the 228 meeting room in the Tianjiabing Building. Dean and Professor Xu Xiaozhou on behalf of our college warmly welcomed Dean Gonzalez and Professor Ross. In his address Dean Xu thanked them for their pushing forward this cooperation and communication.

    Zhejiang University and Indiana University are close friends and between both schools there has been intercollegiate exchange and frequent exchanges for visitations. Dean Xu presented this signing of the cooperation agreement as very important for our school and university. The College of Education, Zhejiang University and the School of Education, Indiana University have maintained a cooperative relationship since the early 1980s and have engaged in mutual visitations and cooperation which have continually strengthened the relationship. More than 10 faculty members and students of our college have visited or been visiting scholars or entered into the PhD degree program. At the same time, faculty members from the school of Education, Indiana University have also visited as short term foreign experts and have made great contributions to the fostering of students through lectures, conducting student academic papers, and helping to set up our college curriculum system.
    In 2012, through the “Partnership Project of the First Class Discipline”, our college and the School of Education, Indiana University continuously discussed further cooperation through activities such as joint disciplines, collaboration on education, developing international research, holding international conferences, devising joint curriculum syllabuses, In terms of profound friendship and cooperation, our college has attached extreme importance to signing the agreement. We hope that through formally institutionalizing and bringing further cooperation, we can refine mutual interests, in order to improve the teaching quality of our college education. Finally, Dean Xu hoped that both sides can rely on the framework agreement, extend channels of cooperation in the future through trust and collaboration. He continuously pointed out that both sides work together to create a bright future and expressed a heartfelt welcome to Dean Gonzalez again.
    Dean and Professor Gonzalez from the SC-IU gave a speech stating that he was genuinely happy about this visit. Zhejiang University is outstanding and a historical university. He said this visit was the second time and it has brought him a profound impression of the high quality of teaching and students. The signing of the cooperative agreement is the expression of the long-term accumulation of mutual recognition and identification on the both sides, past, present, and the future. The signing is an official and formal process and is based on both side’s level of communication to provide comprehensive promotion of quality assurance and to make breakthroughs in centralized research institutes or other institutes for cooperation. It is conducive to both sides and also a win-win cooperation, he said. At the same time, this agreement also will serve as a motivation for academics and the development of knowledge. The signing ceremony was held successfully and he felt very proud. Dean Gonzalez hopes that the future of both sides can broaden areas of cooperation such as distance education, employment markets, principles, teacher and student exchanges in high and middle schools, and comprehensively deepen the exchanges and cooperation which will create mutual trust.

    Based on the agreement, both sides will engage in faculty exchange, short-term student visits, joint doctoral student programs, setting up distance education, and also deepen various cooperation research fields. After the signing of the agreement, both sides exchanged school gifts.