President of Hawai’ i Pacific University, UAS, John Gotanda

Thank you all for your applauses. It is my pleasure and my honor to be in Beijing today, to represent Hawai’ i Pacific University and become one of the foundation member countries of the Belt and Road Architectural University International Consortium. Actually, the relationship between China and Hawaii can be described as special, with a long history. As early as 1789, China has left its mark on Hawaii. Before then, Captain Hu Ke once arrived in Hawaii, which was called as Honolulu by Chinese. Hawaiians are famous for their hospitality, and wherever they go, they will take some gifts. Tonight, I will also present my gift, a carpenter made of acacia rachii, which represents the traffic tool on our journey. In the ancient Hawaii, there were many explorers, and all of them crossed the Pacific Ocean by canoe, therefore, carpenter becomes the symbol of courage and discovery.

In Hawai’ i Pacific University, there are more than 5000 students from more than 50 states and more than 70 countries and regions, with good pluralism. I wish we can make efforts together on the journey of the discovery. Our idea is very simple; that is to encourage students to study all time, endow them with new angles, new concept, new ideas, which will benefit them lifelong. We have projects based on innovation, with the market as center and students as the basis. Our school can offer different options for students, also provides individualized experience for students. There are more than 50 undergraduate projects are available for option, and more than 30 postgraduate projects. Our university consists of 5 colleges, and they are College of Business, College of Expansion and Interdisciplinary Education, College of Health and Society, College of Liberal Arts, and College of Natural and Computational Sciences. Our most popular disciplines include international business, marine biology and nursing. Our latest engineering project also attracts the attention and support from different circles of the society and students. Our curriculum setting is small class teaching, with less than 20 students each class. The teacher student ratio in our school is 1:13. Our idea of taking people as the basis not only refers to small class teaching, but also enabling the students to play their personality well. That is to say the curriculum is set according to characteristics of each student, making them to have the study experience suitable to themselves, to ensure that they can really strengthen their ability construction, benefit for their vocation development and meet the needs of the markets through education. The study atmosphere of our students is very unique, because our school locates on the coast of Pacific Ocean, which witnesses the fastest economy development in the world. In such an environment, we have such an atmosphere of combining the west and the east, which not only offers the place for overall study for students but also practice opportunities either in classroom or outside classroom. Located at Honolulu, we own various kinds of internship opportunities and projects of off campus supervisors, and our students can practice their skills outside the classroom and in the internship directly. That is to say they can adapt to the market better when they get graduate.

I want to introduce our cutting-edge scientific research project a little bit, especially some projects which are undergoing in our marine institution. The scientific research projects our researchers are engaged in are to improve the disease resistance of shrimp culture. 60% of the genes of the cultured shrimps are originated from our marine institution which is also the first place for coral fish culture. For example, yellow fish is beneficial for the sustainable development of the ocean and ecology. It is hard for the ancient Hawaiians to row the canoe ahead alone, and each canoe should have a team to paddle together to sail ahead. And this paddle just represents the joint cooperation of all the teachers and students. Later, I understand the spirit of the Silk Road, which can be summarized into as peace, cooperation, opening, tolerance, mutual learning, and mutual benefit. I think it is very similar to one old saying in Hawaii, with its Chinese meaning as we can go ahead all the way through cooperation. In this way, through the cooperation of various universities in our Consortium, we can realize the mutual communication of recent resource sharing. I believe, in such a way, we can also construct joint power for all the universities and provide better opportunities for the students. Our school sets the curriculum by using the unique island culture and rich cultural atmosphere, enable the student to explore more colorful ideas, and we also sincerely wish that we can really expand the Hawaii spirit and Hawaii culture, and spread and inherit this culture in the whole Consortium. As we all know, our students will enter into a global market, full of fierce competition and changes all time. As a Consortium, we should be able to provide a protective opportunity for our students through cooperation, make them to cooperate in a better atmosphere, develop their own international angle and have the cross-culture practice ability. As educators, our responsibility is to help our students to meet the requirements posed by the 21st century. We are very confident to say that the cross-culture exchange among students and the cross-culture exchange among teachers can also enrich the study experience among universities, enrich the project curriculum. Can you imagine what a virtual classroom will look like? In this classroom, students from Asia, Africa and Hawaii, will sit together and study from world-class supervisor. Today, our technology has been mature, and this vision has become true. Now universities have established cooperation. Everything is ready, and all that we need is an east wind, a crucial action.

Finally, this carpenter has a crown acacia rachii, which represents the firm and indomitable Hawaii spirit, while our Consortium is also very powerful, firm and indomitable, because it is composed by the world famous universities, with the same vision, shared resources. I believe we will achieve bigger success through cooperation and we feel so honored to become one member of the consortium, and look forward to paddling together with all of you in the future, to achieve success together. Thanks very much.

(Compiled according to the shorthand record at the conference)