On May 17, Marietta Baba, Dean of College of Social Sciences of Michigan State University, with other four professors, paid a friendly visit to Zhejiang University. WU Ping, Vice President of ZJU, Professor YU Xunda, Secretary of Party Working Committee and Vice Dean of FSS met the visitors and displayed hospital greeting.

In the afternoon, representatives from the two universities carried out a discussion on joint paper-publishing, the publication of collaborated books both in Chinese and English, and short-term scholars’ exchanges of visits. Professor Marietta Baba, Professor Richard, Dean of School of Politics of MSU, Professor QI Jiaguo, Director of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observation, two other associate professors of School of Politics, Sarah Reckhow and Josh Sapotichne, and professors from College of Public Administration of ZJU, including Professor LANG Xingyou, Professor LIN Ka, Associate Professor ZHANG Weiwen, Associate Professor WANG Hui, Associate Professor HAN Haoying, Associate Professor YUE Wenze, Associate Professor RUAN Xingyun (presented by the his student ZHAO Zhao) attended the meeting. They each made an introduction to the research area, the topic chosen and preparations they have made for the joint publication of papers, and exchanged opinions on the cooperation. In the following two days, scholars from the two universities furthered and deepened their discussions in pairs upon the research topics they were jointly interested in.

A consensus has reached in this meeting that FSS would send some scholars to visit MSU for a short period in early October, 2010. Further cooperation is expected.