To constantly improve the quality of ZJU-UIUC Institute (ZJUI), construct a platform for communication between ZJUI and students’ parents, improve the understanding and support from parents, and listen the constructive opinion from parents, ZJUI held the first Parents’ Day at the international campus in Haining on April 21st. More than 60 parents of ZJUI students from different parts of China were invited to attend this activity. Vice-President of international campus, K.C.Ting, Dean of ZJUI Institute, Erping Li, Executive Dean of ZJUI, Philip Krein, Vice-Dean Hao Ma, and teachers from ZJUI and relative administrative staff also attended this activity.

In the meeting, Dean Erping Li discussed the change and development to the engineering discipline in these several years, introduced the training idea of “breaking the boundaries of traditional engineering disciplines and cultivating composite and innovative engineering elites" to the parents in detail. From the characteristics of the courses to the vivid examples of the teachers’ representatives, Prof. Li explained the efforts made by the college in achieving the goal of teaching people. He stated that our institute will continue to build the world-class institute of engineering, and cultivating the engineering leaders. He also hopes that parents will continue to support and participate actively, create more and better opportunities for the students together with the school.

Executive Dean Philip Krein introduced the benefits of interdisciplinary course setting to the students and he also talks about the concept of “T-Shaped student”, which means that ZJUI aims to cultivate students who not only know their subject matter in depth , but also have interdisciplinary broad field knowledge and can actively participate in social practice and teamwork. From the curriculum, the faculty and scientific research work, ZJUI runs this institute around the main idea of developing such “T-Shaped students” who can meet the challenges of the world, and we cultivate the creativity, the leadership and the entrepreneurial spirit of the students.

Assistant Dean Qiang Lu, talked about the photos he took in the daily life for ZJUI students, shared the story behind the photos with the parents who attend the meeting.

Four  students, on behalf of their groups, demonstrated their excellent projects to the parents to demonstrate their development as engineers. Chao Xu discussed their research about applying micro-nano sensor to the high precision real-time haze detector. Enyi Jiang introduced the turbulence model based on machine learning. Yiqi Feng demonstrated his experiment of winning the first prize in the construction competition without taking any relative courses. Tianyi Meng shared the preparation condition of the upcoming Robomaster Competition.

Then, Ms. Liu Ling, the newly nominated chairman of the first parents committee, made a brilliant speech. As the first chairman of the parents committee, she feels both a heavy sense of responsibility and excitement. She says that she will strive to improve the communication between the parents and school, and she will try her best to unite all other parents to create more opportunities for student’s development and contribute to the development of the institute.

 In the end, ZJUI faculty and staff had direct communication with parents. The faculty and staff who attended the meeting answered all questions from the parents and revealed the characteristics of this institute and the difference between Chinese education and the western education, hoping that parents will understand more about the multi-directional interactive education style which is student-centered, and cultivates the spirit of positively and creatively learning of students. The institute also evaluated the valuable constructive opinions and advice from parents, promising that they will try hard to solve all the problems and accept the advice from parents. There were several times parents applauded to show their deep hope and the confidence for the school. The parents all expressed their strong hope of improving the communication between parents and the school, and that they can help our school to enlarge the advertisement, which will make our institute become better!