During May 30^th and June 1^st, Prof. Sarah Dixon, the AACSB Mentor for the School of Management, Lanzhou University (LUSM) visited LUSM.

Mentor visit is of great importance to AACSB accreditation. During the three-day on-site guidance, Prof. Sarah Dixon listened to the introduction of the school’s present situation and preparation for AACSB accreditation, held discussions with school leaders, faculty and students, visited Yuzhong campus and reviewed the draft proposals and draft iSER report to get further understanding of LUSM’s basic situation on talents cultivation, scientific research, international cooperation and social service.

Discussion with students

On the inquiry and feedback session, Prof. Sarah Dixon praised LUSM’s progress on its preparations and its hard work since the eligibility application submitted in November, 2017. She gave detailed guidance on the school’s draft iSER report, AoL implementation and assessment and provided constructive comments and suggestions for further improvement accordingly on school’s mission, program exclusion and continuous improvement in curriculum design and development. Prof. Sarah Dixon hope that LUSM can take the Belt and Road Initiative and the pilot school initiative for development as an opportunity to promote construction on its team building, education quality and international publication, and suggested that fully engagement in accreditation should be encouraged to achieve the continuous improvement.

Inquiry & feedback session

During the visit, LI Zhengyuan, the deputy secretary of party committee of Lanzhou University (LZU) met with prof. Sarah Dixon. He introduced LZU’s history and proposed that with the support for management science given by the Belt and Road Initiative and the “Double-First Class” initiative, LUSM can carry out all the preparations for AACSB accreditation smoothly with mentor’s assistance and guidance. In the meantime, taking accreditation as an opportunity, LZU will improve weak links and achieve continuous improvement to further upgrade education quality.

 Mentor and LZU leaders

To help LUSM get a thorough understanding of AACSB accreditation, Prof. Sarah Dixon delivered a lecture themed Teaching Quality Improvement, which fully explored LUSM’s understanding of the mission on business education and the challenges and opportunities for future development.

Lecture delivered by Prof. Sarah Dixon

Link: Synonymous with the highest standards of excellence since 1916, AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) provides quality assurance, business education intelligence, and professional development services to over 1,600 member organizations and more than 800 accredited business schools worldwide. LUSM officially launched the accreditation in June 2017 and the eligibility application was successfully received by the Initial Accreditation Committee (IAC) in November 2017. In January 2018, IAC assigned Prof. Sarah Dixon as LUSM's mentor to provide guidance and assistance to improve the school's education quality. Mentor visit is one of the key parts of accreditation, which will be followed by iSER submission, quality assurance implementation and on-site visit.