Dear teachers and students,

Good morning!

Today, Sichuan Agricultural University, is ushering in more than 100 new international students from more than 15 countries and regions all over the world. The day before yesterday is Mid Autumn Festival in China. When we celebrated the festival of reunion, you guys left your homelands and families for study in SICAU. First of all, on behalf of teachers and students of our school, let me express my warm welcome to you all to join our big SICAU family.

We are in a global era, where have a close link in all the country of the world. Chinese President Xi Jinping stated the concept of “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind”, which means there is only one earth for mankind, and all countries live together in a world. This concept not only connects all the countries together, but also let the mankind have a lot of common goals. In face of non-traditional security issues, such as food security, resource shortage, climate change, environment pollution, and so on. I believe that you, as responsible citizens of the world, are precisely with the goal of nurturing safer foods and creating a better environment through what you have learned and come to our school across the thousands of miles. Similarly, this goal is also the historical mission of our school. In past 112 years, our school have always been striving for these goals.

2018 grade international students have chosen 34 graduate majors and 5 undergraduate majors in our school this year, which, I believe, is a serious decision made by you on the basis of your academic interests and career planning. I also believe that as a comprehensive university, which has 91 majors for undergraduate degree program, 87 majors for master’s degree programs, and 48 majors for doctoral degree programs, SICAU will be your best choice.

Sichuan Agricultural University is a national "211 Project" key construction university and "double first-class" construction university, with the characteristics of biotechnology, the advantages of agricultural science and technology, and multi-disciplinary coordinated development. It has Ya'an, Chengdu and Dujiangyan 3 campuses, covering an area of about 4500 acre, having more than 45,000 faculty members, teachers and students. According to the latest ESI global discipline ranking in 2018, agricultural science, botany, and zoology of our school have been maintained in the top 1% of the world. Our school also ranked No.7 in the agricultural and forestry universities of whole country and No. 4 in the universities of Sichuan in the light of the result of the fourth round of disciplinary assessment in 2017. There are nearly 1000 professors and associate professors represented by academicians of Chinese Academy of Engineering, the scholars of the Yangtze River Program，and the National Outstanding Young Found Recipients. They have successively won 11 National Teaching Achievement Awards, producing 5 National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations and 6 nominations representing the highest quality of higher education. Meanwhile, they also have gotten 24 National Science and Technology Awards, including 2 First Prize of National Technological Invention Awards representing the highest level of science and technology in China. In particular, the excellent teams which have published a number of original achievements in journals such as Science, Cell, Nature Communications, PNAS, Plant Cell and NG representing the top international academic level of crop and animal science.

Our school can provide good research conditions and platforms for you. There are not only the agricultural science discipline group regarding crop science, animal husbandry, and veterinary medicine as the main disciplines, which are closely around the production demand for the major agricultural products in China and in the forefront of similar disciplines of our country, but also the characteristic and applied type disciplines closely related to the economic and social development of the country and the province, such as Agricultural and Forestry Economics and Management. Except for these predominant disciplines, we still have engineering disciplines focusing on integrating engineering technology and agriculture related technologies to solve practical problem in agricultural production. Of course, such disciplines like literature, politics, sports, art design, and so on also have been developing vigorously in our school. I’m looking forward to seeing you will have something to gain in the next few years.

Meanwhile, there are some suggestions on how to explore a wonderful SICAU for you:

Firstly, I hope all of you here should study hard and pursue excellent. This is the most important thing for you to come to our school. Only by studying hard, can you learn what you should learn and what you want to learn. I must admit firstly that the courses taught in English are relatively few now, but you can integrate into your teams or your classmates by English presentations, seminars and lectures. All of our supervisors and teachers will try their best to provide the increasing number of courses taught by English in the future. Meanwhile, as a young generation in information age, I believe you all can use internet better than me. You can use many known scientific website such as NCBI, Science direct and so on to find the updated research paper to broaden your study outside the classroom. There is no doubt that you will find how to search paper by google scholar in China. I can also teach you some old scientific fashion from our age, you can email the author whose paper you are interested in to discuss your opinions or ask your friends who can reach some database easier than you to find the paper you wanted. We also plan to set up a English area, which provides English books and reference materials only, in library to support your study in our school. Read as many as you can will not regret you definitely.

Secondly, I hope you can devote yourself to the scientific research, Go to lab to do experiments actively and energetically. Practice is definitely another most important thing to you. I guess you all know there is a spirit of SICAU after your short visiting of our school history museum just now, and you will learn it more during your stay here in the future. Like the story behindthe team led by Professor Chen Xuewei, Wang Wenming, Li Ping and Li Shigui to conquer the difficulties of balancing high yield and disease resistant of rice.There is a popular saying goes: repeat one hundred times practice can let you become a technician, and ten thousand times can let you become a scientist. Only by constantly repeated practice, can you acquire the success and desired results.

Thirdly, I hope you can do in Rome as Rome does.For you, especially for those who are coming to Chengdu and China for the first time, I believe that this will be an important moment in your life. Leaving from parents and relatives to study alone in China, you may encounter some challenges.Hope that you can actively and optimistically face them, make efforts to understand, and learn to take care of yourself. Certainly, you can also seek help from International Students Office, we are always here.

Fourthly, I hope you can abide by Chinese laws and regulations. This is my most basic requirement for you. Now that you come to China and study in China, you should comply with the Chinese laws and regulations. In the same way, as students of our school, you need also to abide by all the school disciplines and regulations. The details of these rules will be delivered to you in the later orientation. A harmonious learning and living environment can only be created under the circumstances that all of students follow the rules.

Fifthly, I hope you can learn to mutual respect to each other’s cultures. On the one hand, we will respect all your cultures, and please respect Chinese culture also. On the other hand, you come from different countries and of course have different culture backgrounds. Pleasebe inclusive and try to accept different cultures. This is the most valuable reward you can get from studying abroad.

In a word, I hope you will have extraordinary performance in academic study, scientific practice, have fun, enjoy the food, and become a good person.

Dear all, I’m expecting thatyou will personally feel the real China in and outside of the classroom and lab, take the Chinese culture to every corner of the world, introduce the excellent culture of different parts of the world to China, promote mutual understanding between the Chinese people and the people of the world, and contribute to the development of friendship relations between China and other countries.From now on, you will become a member of Sichuan Agricultural University, and at the same time, you also will become one of the most important founders of our school’s history. Today, you have come to our school with hopes and dreams. Tomorrow, you will go out of our school with fruitful harvests to make great contributions to your own countries and to the whole world. Thank you!