Opening Ceremony of ISUSW 2021
Welcome Speech

Liu Senlin
Professor and Dean, School of Philosophy and Social Development
Shandong University

Distinguished Professor Binoy Joseph, the Chairman of International Summer School Consortium for Social Work and Principle of Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, India

Distinguished Dr.Tapparel Sophie, the Secretary General of the International Summer School of Social Work Consortium, and professor in University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

Dear friends, Good morning!

With great joy and hope, we are glad to see the opening of the 12th International summer schoolof Social Work in the year 2021. This year, We are very honored to invite professors and students from University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland, University of California, Los Angeles, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Western Sydney University, Shandong University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong,Tunghai University to participate in our summer school. The theme of this summerschool is “online social work”and the course patterns of it include lecture, workshop, topic report, culture tour and etc.

The faculties include 12 academic and practice professors mainly from the 8 universities we mentioned above. Furthermore there are about 40 students taking part in our summer school. All of them are master’s students or Ph.D. students. At the outset, let me extend, on behalf of the School of Philosophy and Social Development at Shandong University, I would like to extend my warmest welcome and express my heartfelt gratitude to the professors and students who participate in the summer school and the opening ceremony. Thank you all for coming!

Under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Shandong University is a key comprehensive University with a long history, a variety of disciplines, strong academic strength, and distinctive characteristics, which have significant influence both at home and abroad. This year is the 120th anniversary of Shandong University. For more than 100 years, Shandong University has been following the mission of “Reserve talents for the world, and seek prosperity for the nation”. For this aim, it has cultivated over 600,000 talented young people of various specialties.

The School of Philosophy and Social Development has five admissions programs，contain Philosophy, Religious Studies, Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology. Currently, we have 86 teachers from home and abroad. Among them are mainland China (73), Taiwan (2), Hong Kong (2), South Korea (3), the United States (2), Italy (1), Israel (1), Lithuania (1), Greece (1), etc. In addition, several teachers from Germany, Iran, and the Netherlands are about to start their careers. The main research features of the college include: “Judaism and Interreligious Studies”, “I Ching Studies and Traditional Chinese Philosophy”, Hermeneutics, China's Rural Development, Social Welfare and Policy, and so on.

Social work is a new comprehensive applied disciplinein China. Since its establishment in 2000, the Department of Social Work in our Schoolhas made considerable progress in teaching, research and practice. This is inseparable from the good exchanges and cooperation relationships which are established with international partners.

This 12th International Summer School of Social Work is the second time for our School to host Consortium Summer Universityfollowing the 6th International Summer University of Social Work in 2015. In the past 6 years, many teachers and students from the Department of Social Work of our school have successively participated in various international summer schools held at the Consortium Universities and learned a lot of valuable professional and cultural knowledge. We will take this opportunity to work with experts, scholars and students at home and abroad to contribute wisdom and strength to the development of international social work.

Finally, I wish this Summer University a complete success!

Thank you all!