On the morning of 20th March, Professor Hu Shougen, President of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST) and Chairman of the Management Council of SBC met with Professor John Wilson, Vice-Principal and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), UK. Professor Tian Weifeng and Professor Sun Yuedong, Vice Presidents of USST, and other members of the senior management team at USST and SBC also attended the meeting.
Having been through the whole recruitment process for the position of Principal and CEO at SBC, out of the 120 candidates worldwide, Professor Wilson has successfully been appointed by the SBC Management Council for the Principal’s position with his outstanding academic achievement and strong managerial background with UK universities. He will take on his new role at SBC from May 2015.
Professor John Wilson is a professionally qualified accountant (member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) and marketer (member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing) with an academic background in social sciences, mainly politics and economics. He is a Professor of Public Policy and Management.
Professor Wilson has fulfilled a variety of leading roles at British universities, including Liverpool John Moores University, Teesside University and the University of Salford, where he was the founding Head of the Salford Business School. Currently, Professor John Wilson is Vice-Principal and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Student Experience) at GCU. He has been involved in various international networks in America and Europe and previously collaborated with a number of organisations in China.
On behalf of University, President Hu extended a warm welcome to Professor John Wilson for joining the USST/SBC family. He said that Shanghai has recently been identified as a pilot city by the Chinese central government for higher education reform. Geographically and economically, the internationalisation of universities in Shanghai will play an even more important role for the development of the city in the near future. President Hu also pointed out that in the past ten years, as a model for international education at USST, SBC has highly been recognised by the government and the public with rapid development. The College is now facing opportunities as well as challenges for improving the quality of teaching, raising public profile and enhancing students’ employability etc. In addition, it was suggested that the integration of education systems in the UK and in China needs to be further strengthened by encouraging cooperation between SBC and other colleges at USST and introducing in postgraduate teaching and research into SBC.
President Hu is confident that with Professor Wilson joining the team, SBC will achieve new success at a higher level. Professor Wilson responded that he was looking forward to working with his new colleagues at SBC and would do his best to lead the College onto the next phase.
After the meeting with President Hu, Professor Tian Weifeng, Vice President of USST (International) had a further discussion with Professor Wilson on work plan and future development of SBC.
