In the afternoon of March 31, 2010, the University of Delaware Delegation visited the College of Oceanography and Environmental Science (COE) and the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL), Xiamen University (XMU) in Xiamen. The Delegation, led by Deputy Provost Havidán Rodríguez, included Nancy Targett, Dean of Earth, Ocean and Environment (CEOE); Michael Chajes, Dean of Engineering; George Watson, Dean of Arts & Sciences; Bintong Chen, Prof. in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Business Administration; Jianguo Chen, Director of the Chinese Program and a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures; and Bahram Rajaee, Director of Grants, Contracts, and International Partnerships in the Institute for Global Studies. The Lighthipe Chair Professor at CEOE/UD Xiao-Hai Yan, who arrived Xiamen days earlier, also joined the discussion meetings. More information about the Delegation’s visit to China is available at UD’s website.
The Dean of COE/XMU, Prof. Minhan Dai, gave a brief introduction of the College and the MEL to the delegates. Afterwards, Prof. Nancy Targett introduced UD’s marine programs and global perspectives to COE/XMU faculty.Prof. Nancy Targett and Prof. Minhan Dai are the Co-Directors of the Joint Institute for Coastal Research and Management (Joint-CRM). Dai overviewed new progress of the Joint-CRM during year 2009 and expressed his vision for deeper and extensive collaborations with UD in the future. Targett said that she was very pleased to see the progress made in the Joint-CRM, and she was excited to be able to build further collaborations between faculties from both sides.
On April 2, Targett and Yan met with Dai and other COE faculty members again to further discuss detail collaboration issues of the Joint-CRM. Both sides agreed that in addition to ocean remote sensing, other areas of interest for joint research could be acoustics and biogeochemistry and microbial ecology. Both Co-Directors also remarked that they would allocate some seed funds for seeking future funding possibilities to facilitate scholar and student exchange programs. The Dual PhD Degree Program in Oceanography and the facility link in the web of the Joint-CRM were also discussed.