On November 18, 2021, Professor CHEN Song from the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, who is also an AACSB accreditation mentor and former EPAS Accreditation Board member, visited SoB to guide international accreditation work. SoB’s Associate Dean DING Hao, EQUIS Accreditation Project Leader ZHAO Di, and International Accreditation Supervisor LIU Tianjiao participated in the meeting.

Professor DING Hao first warmly welcomed Professor CHEN Song on behalf of SoB and reported on SoB’s recent plans in strengthening discipline development and talent cultivation. He expressed the desire to standardize the teaching and assessment of core courses through an Assurance of Learning system. Professor Chen endorsed SoB’s strategic planning and offered three valuable suggestions for future work arrangements. First, he suggested formulating a sound School strategy and execute it effectively, namely establishing a strategic planning team led by SoB’s leadership, using SWOT analysis to focus on SoB’s capabilities and resources, formulating a scientific and reasonable strategic plan, as well as adopting both top-down and bottom-up cycles to widely gather faculty input. Second, he recommended inviting Professor Jérôme Bon, Emeritus Professor at ESCP Europe, Senior Associate Dean at Tongji SEM, and an international accreditation expert, to serve as a consulting expert for SoB’s EQUIS accreditation to provide professional guidance. Third, he emphasized further revise and improve the EQUIS Data Sheet, noting that risk management should not only refer to financial risk management but also include physical and environmental safety, and risk prevention and management of faculty and student mental health.

Finally, the two sides engaged in a lively discussion about the Assurance of Learning system. Professor Chen suggested that SoB should select core courses and create a curriculum map aligned with the training objectives. He advised establishing core course groups, having faculty members of these groups jointly discuss and refine the training objectives, and determining unified assessment standards and evaluation methods.