Pierre Pienaar, education director for the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) and President of the World Packaging Organisation (WPO), recently received an appointment as Professor to the Sichuan University in Chengdu, China.
Chengdu is the fourth largest city in China with a population of 17 million and is the capital of Sichuan Province.
Sichuan University was founded in 1896 and is one of the three oldest universities in China. It is one of the most prestigious national key universities in education, research and social impact in China. It is engaged with 248 global academic universities and research institutes in 42 countries. The University has 34 faculties, 354 Doctoral programs, 438 Master Programs, 142 undergraduate programs and is ranked #13 out of 2914 universities in China. Sichuan University has some 60,000 full time students and 3,000 international students living on campus and attending classes each year. Including Postgraduates, Master and PhD level students, teaching and administration staff the number increases to 100,000 across three campuses located in Chengdu.
Pienaar has been lecturing Industrial Design students as a part of the Sichuan University Immersion Program for three years now.
According to Pienaar his focus within the Immersion Program is Material Science, Packaging Management, Sustainability in Packaging and Packaging Design subjects. All of the units have assessment pieces at the end where they need to attain a minimum of 60%.’
“Whilst my teaching focuses on Industrial Design students, people from other courses and faculties, such as design, graphics, engineering, arts, sciences, often attend my classes,” Pienaar said.
“The number of students vary from year to year in the Immersion Program, but on average there would be 55 to 75 attending classes; which run from 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday,”
“I am certainly honoured to have this conferred on me from a prestigious university like Sichuan University. I am even more thrilled that leading universities, such as Sichuan University, acknowledges packaging and all that it is and means to society,” he said.
“Sichuan University acknowledges the principles of good academic practice and high ethical standards and they want to see innovative teaching that aims to educate students as critical and responsible members of society and provide them with advanced knowledge.” Prof Pienaar said.
Pienaar has been lecturing at a number of other Universities in China since 2014 including Beijing University and Jiangnan University in Wuxi.