AUS President Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi and Chancellor Dr Susan Mumm, along with several deans and senior faculty members, welcomed their Chinese counterparts, whose public research institution was founded in 1898 under the royal charter of the Guangxu Emperor, and today has around 35,000 students.
The seven-strong Peking University delegation, led by Vice-President Professor Ning Qi, toured the AUS campus with their hosts before holding talks on several issues, such as their universities’ academic and institutional strengths, and areas for potential cooperation.
During the meeting, Peking University Vice-President Professor Ning Qi invited Sheikha Bodour to pay a return visit to Peking University, and she agreed to explore opportunities to do so as soon as possible.
Sheikha Bodour said: ‘It was an honour to welcome the delegation from Peking University, in Beijing, to the American University of Sharjah. I’m very much in favour of international collaboration, which can achieve much more than any one party in isolation. Our universities stand to gain a great deal by working together, so it was gratifying to discuss our respective institutions’ assets and investigate possibilities for cooperative initiatives for the mutual benefit of our students and institutions. I look forward to building on this newly opened chapter of closer relations in the future.’