It’s a golden autumn again when we welcome our new generation of students. On the morning of September 9, 2015, the 2015 Opening Convocation of SUSTC was held in Gymnasium in the University Town of Shenzhen. University leaders, such as Li Ming, chairperson of university council, Chen Shiyi, the president, Wu Chuanyue and Tang Tao, the vice presidents, Dong Zhaojun, the secretary general, Ye Qin, the chief accountant, Han Wei, the deputy director and Lu Chun, the dean of general affairs, and director and representatives of SUSTC education foundation, leaders from Shenzhen Education Bureau, Nanshan Government, education bureaus of districts and Taoyuan Street Office, villager representatives from Fuguang Village, Changyuan Village and Tanglang Village, leaders and drillmasters from Shenzhen Border Defense Corps of People’s Armed Police as military training troops of the university, leaders from part of the city’s key middle schools and primary schools, leaders and journalists from multiple central, provincial and municipal news media, part of parents of the freshmen as well as more than 3000 teachers, students, staff members and workers have attended the opening ceremony. The opening Convocation was hosted by the Wu Chuanyue.
Joining of over 900 freshmen and additional excellent professors in SUSTC has made the opening convocation an unprecedented event. This year, both quantity and quality of the recruit undergraduate students in SUSTC have been increased and improved, and the university has recruited 935 students from 21 national provinces, cities and districts with 54% growth rate and further improved source quality of students. SUSTC ranks in top 2% in most of the recruit provinces and retains in middle-upper class among the national “985” universities. In addition, the university has reached a higher level in talent introduction with a group of excellent professors from home and abroad joining the university. And also, the university has walked a faster and rapider step in discipline construction with the successive establishment of Department of Mathematics and School of Environmental Science and Engineering. SUSTC is full of vigor and flourishing with all works moving forward rapidly.
Before the opening convocation, Traditional Instruments Orchestra of Zhiren College presented wonderful performance and 2015 freshmen sang and had a competition with passion. Following that, an innovative video to welcome the arrival the new comers filled the ceremony site with sunshine and joys. In the video, leaders, professors, staffs, cooks, security personnel, students of SUSTC and even children from kindergarten of SUSTC had presented their welcome and greetings to freshmen. The smiling faces, sincere wishes and passionate word of “SUSTC welcome you” all give the freshmen happy longing and expectations.
Performance by Traditional Instruments Orchestra of Zhiren College
Students and teachers are watching the video made to welcome the arrival of the new comers.
At 10:00 am, the opening ceremony started officially. All participants stood up with the solemn and powerful national anthem of the People’s Republic of China rising in the ceremony site.
President Chen Shiyi makes a statement: Choice Starts from Innovation Capital
President made a speech titled “Choice Starts from Innovation Capital”. He warmly welcomed the 935 students from 21 provinces, cities and municipalities in China to Shenzhen and to SUSTC. He said that SUSTC had only 45 students five years ago. However, it has owned an international and high-level team of 180 teachers, and students’ number breaks through 2100 for the first time, which means that SUSTC has stepped into a new stage of stable promotion and fast development.
Chen Shiyi showed that SUSTC is a new university, a triune university with research, innovation and entrepreneurship, and a university which belongs to the future. SUSTC will build up six colleges gradually, and over 20 departments and 23 pioneering and interdisciplinary research centers will spring up recently; in the next 10 years, SUSTC will build up a high-quality team of about 800 teachers with noble morality, reasonable structure, outstanding teaching and researching ability, full of juice, and international competitiveness. The school will form a student scale of 8000, and adhere to training mode for top-notch innovative personnel, which takes “credit system, collegiate system, tutorial system, internationalization, individuation and elitism” as its cores and characteristics. We are sure that SUSTC will be a world-class university, and the brightest card of Shenzhen.
Chen Shiyi advised all the SUSTC students affectionately: University is the beginning of independent life, and innovation is the basic spiritual connotation of SUSTC. I wish that SUSTC students can carry out the following three aspects: lay a solid foundation for lifelong learning; cultivate independent and confident spiritual characters, and always have critical spirit in the process of exploring the unknown; whilst you are ambitious, you should pay attention to the communication and cooperation with others, and cultivate up-and-coming team spirit. At last, Principal Chen cited an excerpt from the Road Not Taken written by Robert Frost, one of the most famous American poets in the 20th century to encourage all the students.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.
Faculty and staff representative Professor Zheng Chunmiao gives a speech
Professor Zheng Chunmiao, the teacher representative, and the dean of the Environmental Science and Engineering College, shared three points of his feeling about his school life and working life in the last several decades. He said that “Life is unpredictable, be prepared”, “Life is a long journey, keep going”, “Life is beautiful, enjoy it.”
Wu Jingrou gives a speech on behalf of freshmen
2015-grade student Wu Jingrou gave a speech as a representative of freshmen. She said: we are all looking forward to college life very much, and we come here with our dream. Whilst we spend 4 years trying our best to learn knowledge, we need to learn thinking, trying and undertaking. I hope we could be as excellent as 45 former schoolmates from educational reform class four years later and furthermore, I hope that we could be outstanding like 180 current professors in our school 20 year later.
Alumni representative Yang Siyuan gives a speech
Yang Siyuan, the first-session graduate from educational reform experimental class, gave a speech as a special guest; he extended a welcome to 2015-grade freshmen on behalf of alumni and depicted the upcoming wonderful college life with senior brothers and sisters at present. He expressed that as a member of the first-session educational reform experimental class, he participated in the first-session opening ceremony of SUSTC. From the very start, he spent four years as an undergraduate here, which were unforgettable, precious and wonderful during all his life. Long as the way is, everything is merely at the starting line; SUSTC with an increase infusion of fresh blood will keep going forward, with making progress instead going backwards.
The chairperson of university council Li Ming gives a speech: Let’s walk in the entrepreneurial journey of SUSTC hand-in-hand
The chairperson of university council Li Ming gave a speech at the opening ceremony. Li Ming said: SUSTC is such a university that is starting a business. Since the launch of construction work on SUSTC, the entrepreneurs from SUSTC have succeed in carrying out such assignments; the teaching and scientific research in college, introduction of teaching staff, enrollment reform, personnel training, internationally cooperative school-running form and first-stage campus construction have achieved notable accomplishments, which embody the effort and labor of all faculty and students. Moreover, Today’s enrollment of all the newcomers infuse fresh blood into SUSTC and you are also entrepreneurs of SUSTC.
Group photo of teachers and students
The opening convocation attracted more than 20 media at home and abroad to report there, and after the ceremony, President Chen Shiyi as well as all deans of various departments was interviewed by each media reporter.
