Oct. 30, Duke Kunshan University held its second university-wide Open House and attracted over 1000 students, parents and teachers from more than 10 cities including Shanghai, Suzhou and Beijing. The event was designed to allow the local communities to experience Duke Kunshan’s liberal arts education and to have first-hand information about the university’s academic offerings, learning experience, campus facilities, research opportunities and student life.
‘In holding this open house event, we hope to give back to the society and the local community that has always been very supportive of us. We are delighted to have students, parents and teachers not only from Kunshan, but also from Yangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai, as well as friends from Beijing who are interested in learning more about Duke Kunshan University,’ said Haiyan Gao, vice chancellor for academic affairs at Duke Kunshan University. ‘We want to showcase our academic programs, research projects, and more importantly, our education philosophy and pedagogical approaches. We also like to bring to the spotlight a new innovative four-year undergraduate degree program that we hope to launch in the near future.’
A total of 25 “attractions” were designed across the Duke Kunshan campus to allow visitors experience different aspects of what Duke Kunshan has to offer. During their visit, many of the students had ample opportunities in speaking with Duke Kunshan faculty and staff, which offered them a window to higher education and the real academic world. The Program Introduction session provided students and parents an opportunity to not only learn about the various academic programs offered and to be offered at Duke Kunshan, but also to learn more in-depth of the university’s education philosophy, vision, mission, and superlative resources. At the International Culture Fair, students were immersed in the culturally diverse environment of Duke Kunshan University, and explored the tradition of a few different cultures via interacting with Duke Kunshan students who come from diverse backgrounds.
The open house event also featured an Undergraduate Global Learning Semester (GLS) Alumni Panel, at which four GLS alumni shared their experiences at Duke Kunshan. Nicholas Peoples, who is currently a graduate student at Duke Kunshan, said, ‘I was lucky to spend a semester at Duke Kunshan University when I was an undergraduate student, and my experience here was wonderful. After I returned to my home university in the United States, I applied to graduate programs at three universities ‘ all of them are at the same level as Duke, but then I decided to come back to Duke Kunshan.’ Feng Xiaotong, now a graduate student at Shanghai Jiaotong University, added, ‘the unique aspect of every student is respected here. The uniqueness of Duke Kunshan University lies not only in its faculty resources and great facilities, but also in its culture.’
Besides visiting the university gym, student residence hall, and telepresence conference room, the visitors also ‘roamed around’ the Duke Kunshan campus in a very different way ‘ they explored every corner of the campus via virtual reality goggles and the world’s first gigapixel camera invented by David Brady, professor at Duke Kunshan University and Duke University, and were amazed by those high-tech ‘eyes’. ‘These high-tech gears really piqued my curiosity about the scientific principles behind them,’ said a student from Shanghai Xingzhi High School.
Four special lectures by Duke Kunshan faculty were offered to showcase what college classes are like at Duke Kunshan. Prof. Haiyan Gao, vice chancellor for academic affairs, spoke on the topic ‘Innovative Liberal Arts Education for the 21st Century’. Professor Ronen Plesser, professor of physics and mathematics at Duke University, turned the classroom into a vibrant studio for learning with his lecture on the string theory. Professor Donald Snow, director of the Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan, offered the students some practical tips on how to improve their English. And Professor Junjie Zhang associate professor at Duke Kunshan University and Duke University, director of the international Master of Environmental Policy (iMEP) program and Environmental Research Center at Duke Kunshan University, gave the students a taste of a real college class by lecturing on the economics of air pollution.
One of the most popular attractions was the Science Demonstration session, at which students learned complicated physics concepts and principles in a most fun and intuitive way. In one experiment, for example, a student was invited to stretch and extend his arms with two dumbbells in hand while sitting in a rotating stool, and via observing the movement of the rotating stool, the students learned the basic principle of conservation of angular momentum. Having participated in the experiments designed by experts, the students were impressed by the interactive and engaging pedagogical approach of Duke Kunshan University. ‘I’ve heard about the principle of conservation of angular momentum, but this is the first time that I have the opportunity to ‘feel’ and experiment with the principle,’ said a student from Xinghai Experimental Middle School.
At the end of the event, all visiting students were awarded honorary-degree diplomas according to the number of the stickers they were able to collect from the attractions they visited.
