Prof. John Belcher, president of The Study Abroad Foundation(SAF) and Daniel Shen, director of executive office of international program in China, visited international college on 29 October, receiving warm welcome and reception of the Prof. Zheng Tongtao, the dean of the college and Huang Guanhua, the office director. They had friendly communication on the cooperation in running schools.

At first, Prof. Zheng gave detailed introduction on our school-running patterns, cooperative overseas schools and programs, enrolled students and so on. Afterwards, Prof. John Belcher introduced the current cooperative conditions of SAF and some major cooperative countries in the world. This foundation has recently cooperated with a wide range of high-quality schools all over the world. According to our condition，John Belcher proposed two possible cooperative patterns. The first one is that the students should complete the first two-year study in China and then finish the remaining two years abroad. During their overseas study, they can apply for the postgraduate programs in the foreign countries. In the last half year of their undergraduate study, students can come back to China to finish their courses and get the degree. Since the colleges they cooperate with are all from the key universities, the undergraduate degree will enjoy great popularity among the foreign universities the students apply for. The students can go abroad to receive their postgraduate education after they get the degree in China. The other one is that he students should complete the first two-year study in China, then finish the remaining two years abroad, and finally get the degree from the U.S.A. universities. This pattern depends on the SAF’s evaluation on the courses offered by our college. 

The last two years’ specialized courses in U.S.A are relatively stable, therefore, through the course evaluation, the cooperative universities try to shift the first two years’ undergraduate courses to China’s universities. 

In addition, Prof. John Belcher spoke highly of the hardward and software teaching facilities and qualities in Xiamen University. He hopes SAF can have chances to cooperate with our colleges in Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run-school programs. Prof. Zheng pointed out that, with the excellent teaching platform provided by XMU, the International College will try its best the better develop the cooperative programs.

Established in 2000 and headquartered in Indiana, The Study Abroad Foundation (SAF) is a USA chartered non-profit organization which helps facilitate the multilateral cooperation and provides high-quality study abroad opportunities and personal support services for qualified university students. The Foundation has currently cooperated with more than 120 first-class universities. In Asia, it cooperates with a wide range of key universities, including those from Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. SAF set its Chinese representative office in Beijing in September, followed by the one in Shanghai in October 2007. Currently, it has established cooperative relationship with universities of ‘211 project’ and some directly subordinate to educational committee in city level.