On September 6, 2018, Provost David Blackwell and Associate provost Susan M. Roberts of the University of Kentucky visited CUMT. President Ge Shirong and Vice-president Zhou Guoqing met the delegation. President Ge, on behalf of CUMT, expressed warm welcome to the delegation and introduced CUMT’s history, education scale, advantage disciplines, research platforms and construction on “Double First-class” Initiative. He reviewed the cooperation consensus and results achieved since the mutual visits in May and September last year. President Ge proposed suggestions on establishing international classes on mining engineering and safety engineering, which are CUMT’s two disciplines supported by the “Double First Class” Initiative, jointly establishing labs and research institutes. President Ge also expected both sides to implement cooperation on occupational safety and health, space exploitation for more cooperation fruits.  

Provost David Blackwell briefly introduced UK and fully agreed with President Ge’s ideas and suggestions. He said the first time he visited CUMT was in 2013 and this visit was essential to him as the provost of UK. He expressed that CUMT and UK have a long cooperation history, with solid cooperation basis and discipline complementary. He expected to implement more and deeper cooperation with CUMT, especially on the “Double First Class” Initiative, for win-win cooperation and common development.

After the meeting, the delegates from two sides held three group discussions, in the areas of engineering, science, business, literature, and physical education, on the topics of implementing teachers’ training, joint research, joint training on postgraduates, undergraduate short-term exchanges.