On the morning of June 21, SJTU Vice President Huang Zhen met with the delegation led by Professor Patrick Osmer, Vice Provost of the Ohio State University (OSU) for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School. William Brustein, Vice Provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs of OSU and Ms. You Chao from China Office accompanied the delegation.

Vice President Huang extended a warm welcome to the delegation led by Vice Provost Osmer. He mentioned that internationalization is one of SJTU's development strategies, and now nearly a third of undergraduates have the opportunity to study abroad during their four-year study period at SJTU. Vice President Huang also briefed the guests on the SJTU's cooperation with MIT, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan and Georgia Institute of Technology.

Vice Provost Osmer expressed gratitude to the warm reception. He said he hoped to learn more about the teaching and research at SJTU to find out potential cooperation areas of mutual interests, and thus share complementary advantages. He mentioned that OSU ranked among Top 20 in the US in the filed of engineering, the humanities, social sciences, economics, medicine and agriculture as well. He hoped to extend the cooperation to the above-mentioned areas based on the existing cooperation with SJTU.

Vice President Huang Zhen agreed with Vice Provost Osmer by pointing out SJTU's strength in management, clinical medicine and agriculture, etc. and there is great potential for bilateral cooperation. They both agreed that the communication of professors from two universities is essential to deepening the cooperation and thus the way should be paved to encourage it. In this regard, Vice President Huang suggested seminars be held by professors of both universities in the areas of common interest, such as food safety, to deepen mutual understanding and seeking cooperation potential.

The Ohio State University is America's largest public university and it has 60,000 students. In May 2011, SJTU SEIEE signed a memorandum of understanding for the BS-MS program with OSU Department of Computer Science and Engineering. According to the memorandum, in September 2011, SEIEE will recommend 14 undergraduate seniors to study in the OSU Department for six months, and after that return to SJTU to complete the undergraduate courses and then pursue Master degree in the OSU Department. SJTU School of Materials Science and Engineering is currently working with the OSU on the joint PhD program. Both heads indicated that they would strive to promote the cooperation and agreed that student exchange should be bidirectional, and OSU students should also be encouraged to SJTU for study and internship.