Asia Intercollegiate Cooperative Project
for Nurturing Global Leaders
in Sustainable Infrastructure Development

On December 18, 2018, “CAMPUS Asia” Monitoring+ Site Visit took place at Jinan campus of Shandong University in China. Prof. Akihide Tada, the project manager of Nagasaki University, along with two other staff members participated in the session. Shandong University has been playing the role as a consortia representative under the leadership of the Vice President, Prof. Han Shenghao and other faculty/staff members of the international office, the School of Civil Engineering and the School of Environmental Engineering. Prof. Kyung Soo Jun, Dean of Graduate School of Water Resources of Sungkyunkwan University also attended at the Site Visit. A site visit team comprised of four experts of the Higher Education Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Education, China was dispatched to Shandong University.

The “CAMPUS Asia” monitoring+ project has been initiated with the purpose of promoting student exchange and furthering the quality of international education in coordination with the governmental agencies of China, Japan and Korea. Nagasaki University, Shandong University and Sungkyunkwan University collaboratively worked on the Self-Assessment Report, which had already been completed and submitted in October 2018. This Site Visit was an opportunity to have our project reviewed by the quality assurance agency of China.

The site visit team visited educational facilities and research laboratories at Shandong University, then proceeded to interview project managers and exchange ideas and opinions with professors and students. Furthermore, a joint presentation was delivered by Prof. Han from Shandong University, Prof. Jun from Sungkyunkwan University and Prof. Tada from Nagasaki University to share the achievement and good practices of the project. At the end of the session, valuable feedback was received from the participating experts. Keeping their comments in mind, we would like to further promote the project in collaboration with three universities. Especially, the Double Degree Program (DD Program) and the joint curriculum of “Infrastructure Maintenance Engineering” are the highlight of our cooperative project and thus will need continuous improvement towards their quality assurance and enhanced learning contents.

In conjunction with the Site Visit, the ninth-round table meeting for the program was held to discuss and finalize the number of outbound and inbound students of the DD Program in 2019. Also, as part of the joint curriculum for “Infrastructure Maintenance Engineering”, it has been decided that Nagasaki University will invite Assoc. Prof. Yang Lei from the School of Civil Engineering of Shandong University to deliver lectures as part of to the curriculum. Finally, Nagasaki University proposed to hold the “3rd Consortium Steering Committee for Nurturing Leading Infrastructure Engineers” in February 2019 in Korea and additionally the “International Symposium on Infrastructure Development and Maintenance in southeast Asia” in March 2019 in Nagasaki. A detailed schedule and agenda will be determined upon further consultation with Shandong University and Sungkyunkwan University.

On December 3, 2018, a networking event took place for this year’s inbound students from Shandong University, China and Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. The event was intended to hear from these nice international students about their thoughts on the campus and the living environment as well as their study progress over the last three months since they arrived in Japan.

Faculty/staff members of the Course of Civil and Environmental Engineering joined the event to share their opinions with the students. Here are some of the feedback and comments received from the international students.

Daily living conditions (dormitory, food and scholarship) in general received good feedback from the students. They say that dormitory rooms back in China and Korea are warmer in winter as they have ondol or floor heating system. Although their current dormitory in Japan has air conditioning system, the students seemingly hesitate to use it too often because it makes their rooms very dry. Most students spend their scholarships for food and cook for themselves besides eating out at the campus cafeteria.

On the other hand, many students mentioned that Nagasaki University offers fewer courses than expected which are related to their own majors. This problem has been recognized at Nagasaki University as well. While universities in China and Korea start their academic year from September, Nagasaki University, where the quarter system is implemented, starts classes from April, which basically enables the international students to take courses offered only for the third and fourth quarters. Nagasaki University will make efforts to improve course availability through increasing the number of English courses offered at the Graduate School of Engineering and adjusting the course schedule offered throughout a year. We are dedicated to providing continuous support for the international students from both universities and helping them lead a fruitful life in Japan.