The Sixth Meeting of Academic Advisory Committee of Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute Successfully Held

2017-11-01

The sixthmeeting of Academic Advisory Committee (hereinafter referred to as “AAC”) ofTsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (hereinafter referred to as “TBSI”) washeld in Shenzhen, Beijing, Hong Kong and California, USA simultaneously throughremote video on the morning of November 1, 2017.


Co-Chairmenof TBSI AAC: Shankar Sastry, Dean of Engineering School of UC Berkeley, and BinYang, Provost and Vice President of Tsinghua University, and members of TBSIAAC:  Connie Chang-Hasnain, Liwei Lin,Max Shen, Max Shen, Jonh Ngai, Ronald Cohen, Feiyu Kang, Xiqin Wang, Wenwu Zhu,Hui Ma and Hongying Hu attended the meeting. The meeting was hosted by LinZhang, Dean of TBSI.


Themeeting officially began on 7am (Beijing Time). The ACC meeting worked ondeliberation on several aspects including recent work progress, personnelaffairs, teaching affairs and administrative affairs. First, the meetingdeliberated on recent work progress by briefing from the situations of newcampus construction, undergraduates of master’s degree or PhD, enrollment of2018, exchange visits between full-time teachers’ team, TBSI and members fromBerkeley and interactive academic communication. The meeting then focused onand discussed specific topics such as setting up External Advisory Board (hereinafterreferred to as “EAB”) and optimizing the framework of TBSI.


Themeeting also deliberated on personnel affairs including the second-roundteacher candidates in 2017, regulations on visiting professors coming to Chinaand forming Committee of Teacher Compensation. On the other hand, TBSI also setup Committee of Appointment and Promotion (hereinafter referred to as “CAP”)this autumn to discuss and preview the teacher candidates before the AACmeeting. CAP recommended 5 teacher candidates to the AAC conference in itsfirst meeting which was held on October 16. Later, the AAC meeting focused onand discussed setting up Committee of Teacher Compensation. It suggestedShankar Sastry, Lin Zhang, Liwei Lin, Peter Lobie, Yulin Zhong and Ling Zhu actas members of the committee who are responsible for deliberating and verifyingteachers’ salary.


Themeeting deliberated on teaching affairs, focusing on and discussing setting upCommittee of Student Education (hereinafter referred to as “CSE”). Then, italso reviewed the major responsibility and list of the committee members. CSEshould be appointed by the AAC and aim at dealing with related teachingroutine.


The AACmeeting deliberated on administrative affairs, focusing on and discussingtopics such as setting up EAB and appointing new Berkeley principalinvestigator. For the purpose of improving the overall layout of the instituteand scientific level of decision-making, broadening mind for leadershipacademic development, identifying leading research orientation, TBSI proposedto set up External Advisory Board(EAB) to promote communication, understanding,and coordination between fields of academy and industry, non-governmentalorganizations and government departments, and to help our institute constructing world-class revolutionary studiesand education bases while also playing a better role of driving economicdevelopment through innovation acceleration by interdisciplinary andtransformational research promotion. The nomination of Dr. EI Ghaoui and Dr.Somayeh Sojoudi to be the new principal investigator has been approved by themeeting successfully.


TBSI ACCmeets twice every year since its establishment on February 2015. The Committeewill supervise scientific research and teaching implementation and offerguidance on institute operation and its overall development. The Committee wasformed by six members from Tsinghua University and another six from the UCBerkeley.


Theresults of the sixth meeting of AAC will indicate the direction and blueprinton teaching, scientific research, talent introduction and administrativemanagement for TBSI in the new developing period. In a word, TsinghuaUniversity and UC Berkeley will write a new chapter in future institutedevelopment, interdisciplinarity creation and integrated innovation by virtueof AAC mechanism.