Vice President Dezhen Xu of Hexi University, one of NCUE's partner universities in Mainland China, led a group to visit NCUE. Because NCUE and Hexi University share a common teaching principle of "knowledge-action integration", and Hexi University is located in Zhangye City, one of the famous Four Counties in the West of Yellow River in the Han Dynasty of ancient China with cultural significance, NCUE looks forward to the opportunity to lead the students to visit. According to Vice President Xu, it is expected that there will be students from Hexi University coming to study on exchange at NCUE in the new academic year, taking advantage of the existing mechanism of student exchange between the two institutions. 

Located in the middle of Hexi Corridor and in the most prosperous section of the Silk Road, Zhangye in Gansu Province was a famous historic city. Hexi University, founded in 1941 as a teacher's college, is now the only comprehensive university with about 19 thousand students in the area of 2,000 kilometers between Lanzhou City and Urumqi City. NCUE and Hexi University became partners in March 2018.

When meeting with the visitors, NCUE Vice President Ming-Fei Chen, who visited Hexi University two years ago, extended a welcome and expressed gratitude for the hospitality he experienced at Hexi University. NCUE and Hexi University share the same experience of transforming from a teacher's college to a comprehensive university, and both stress the teaching principle of "knowledge-action integration", Vice President Chen looks forward to furthering exchange between the two institutions.

Vice President Xu indicated that based on the core subjects of teacher's education, agriculture and medical science, Hexi University has established 18 colleges, 59 undergraduate degree programs and 12 medical programs, covering 12 general disciplines and making it one of the most complete interdisciplinary schools in Gansu Province. Hexi University stresses "knowledge-action integration" and strived to be a base for nurturing applied talents, which echoes NCUE"s "industry-academia cooperation" idea of teaching. Vice President Xu stated that it will be a delight to see any further exchange between the two institutions.

Both sides exchanged views on industry-academia cooperation, teacher growth, course design, student evaluation, student association development, etc. It is expected that the friendship between NCUE and Hexi University will extend to substantial student exchange by NCUE leading students to visit Zhangye and Hexi University sending students over to study.