Famous Schools and Teachers, Revitalizing the Nation through Science and Education (Part 1)
Section 1: Higher Education, Pioneers in Talent Cultivation — Hunan's Largest Comprehensive Military Science and Technology University: National University of Defense Technology. A comprehensive university whose predecessor was the Military Engineering Institute founded in Harbin in 1953, known as "Harbin Military Engineering." In 1970 its main body moved south to Changsha, and in 1978 it was reorganized as the National University of Defense Technology.
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
Section One
Higher Education — Pioneers in Cultivating Talents
Hunan's Largest Comprehensive Military Science and Technology University Stationed in Hunan — National University of Defense Technology
The National University of Defense Technology is a comprehensive university. Its predecessor was the Military Engineering College founded in Harbin in 1953, abbreviated as "Harbin Military Engineering." In 1970, the main body of the college moved south to Changsha. In 1978, it was restructured into the National University of Defense Technology. In April 1999, Changsha Artillery College, Changsha Engineering Corps College, and Changsha Political College were merged in to form the new National University of Defense Technology. The school is a graduate school approved by the State Council and the Central Military Commission. It is one of the 15 key institutions of higher learning invested in and built by the state during the "7th Five-Year Plan" and "8th Five-Year Plan" periods, and one of the first national key institutions to enter the national "211 Project" construction with special central funding support.
National Key Construction University — Hunan University
Hunan University is a comprehensive national key university with a solid foundation in science, strong engineering strength, humanities disciplines with a unique and rich cultural background, and distinctive economics and management disciplines. It is directly under the Ministry of Education and is a key construction university of the national "211 Project" and "985 Project." The school originated from Yuelu Academy, one of the four famous academies of the Song Dynasty, founded in the 9th year of the Kaibao reign of Emperor Taizu of Song (976 AD). Through the changes of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, it has maintained the continuity of cultural education. In 1903, Yuelu Academy was restructured into Hunan Higher School. In 1926, it was named Hunan University. In 1937, it became one of the more than ten national universities under the Ministry of Education of the Nationalist Government. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the famous philosopher and educator Li Da served as the first president of Hunan University, and Chairman Mao Zedong personally inscribed the school name. Hunan University was successively renamed Central South College of Civil Engineering and Architecture and Hunan Institute of Technology, and in 1959, the original name Hunan University was restored. From 1963, it was affiliated with the Ministry of Machine Building Industry. In 1978, it was listed as a national key university. In 1998, it was adjusted to be a university directly under the Ministry of Education. In 2000, in the national adjustment of the layout and structure of higher education institutions, Hunan University and Hunan College of Finance and Economics merged to form the new Hunan University. Hunan University comprehensively implements the Party's educational policy and the strategy of "rejuvenating the country through science and education," carries forward the excellent cultural tradition of Yuelu Academy, persists in reform and innovation, focuses on breakthroughs, and strengthens characteristics. It continuously improves the quality of talent cultivation, the level of discipline construction, and comprehensive school-running benefits, and is committed to building the school into a comprehensive, open, research-oriented domestic first-class university with distinctive characteristics and international influence.
The Key University with the Most Academicians in Hunan — Central South University
Central South University is a national key university directly under the Ministry of Education, one of the first batch of key universities in the national "211 Project," and a high-level university jointly built by the Ministry and the province under the national "985 Project." It was formed on April 29, 2000, through the merger of Hunan Medical University, Changsha Railway University, and Central South University of Technology, and is a multidisciplinary university combining multiple fields. As of 2009, among its full-time teachers were 3 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 13 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, making it the higher education institution in Hunan with the most academicians. Since its founding, Central South University has engaged in military research and is the only university directly under the Ministry of Education that holds a weapons assembly and production license and the only one with a reserve officer training base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army to train officers combining command and technical skills for the military. Drawing on the combined strength of decades of construction and development of three universities, the institution is shouldering the heavy trust of history, rooted in Hunan, oriented toward the whole country, and looking to the world, steadily advancing toward becoming a first-class domestic and internationally renowned university.
Hunan's First Normal University — Hunan Normal University
Hunan Normal University was founded in 1938 at the foot of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha. It is a key university in the national "211 Project" and an excellent institution in the Ministry of Education's evaluation of undergraduate teaching work at regular higher education institutions. The university now has 5 campuses, covering an area of 168 hectares with a building area of more than 1 million square meters, and is one of the national "Top 400" greening units. Since 2000, it has merged with Hunan Education College, Hunan Political and Legal Management Cadre College, and Hunan Medical College, becoming one of the nation's top 100 universities with a relatively complete range of disciplines, strong faculty, and distinctive teacher education characteristics.
Hunan's First Legal Professional Training Base — Xiangtan University
On March 30, 2009, the nation's first centralized and systematic legal professional training base was established in Hunan Province. The legal professional training base was jointly created by Xiangtan University and the Hunan Judicial Police Training College. It is the nation's first training institution to effectively integrate government administrative functions with higher education resources. The establishment of the base will powerfully promote the cultivation of high-quality, high-level talent in the political and legal system throughout the province. The establishment of the Hunan Provincial Legal Professional Training Base is another important measure by which the university fully leverages its disciplinary advantages in law and other fields to serve Hunan's economic and social development. The university will further strengthen cooperation with all parties, actively explore cooperation models, strive to build a diversified talent cultivation and exchange mechanism, and endeavor to make the base a first-class legal professional training base in the country, making new and greater contributions to the cultivation of legal professional talent in Hunan Province.
Hunan's First Higher School of Western Medicine — the Former Xiangya Medical University
The Xiangya School of Medicine of Central South University, formerly Xiangya Medical University, was jointly founded in 1914 by the Hunan Yuchun Society and the Yale Association in China. It is one of China's earlier higher institutions of Western medicine. In September 1996, it passed project review and entered the ranks of key construction under the national "211 Project," jointly built by the Ministry of Health and the Hunan Provincial Government. Over more than 90 years, it was successively renamed Xiangya Medical University, Xiangya School of Medicine, Hunan Medical College, Hunan Medical University, and the Xiangya School of Medicine of Central South University. In 2003, it simultaneously became a pilot institution for the introduction of international standards for medical education in China by the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) and the China Medical Board (CMB) of New York, serving as a vanguard in the research and practice of localizing international standards for medical education. In 2004, it became one of the first five institutions to pilot an eight-year medical education program, and the only university with the "Southern China Medical Education Research and Development Center" established with funding from the China Medical Board. The school upholds the motto and spirit of "public service, courage, diligence, prudence; sincerity, love, humility, integrity; seeking truth and accuracy; and pursuing depth and specialization," and has produced a large number of influential medical experts at home and abroad, including Zhang Xiaoqian, Tang Feifan, Xie Shaowen, and Li Zhenpian, enjoying the reputation of "Xiangya in the South, Union in the North."
Hunan's First Teaching-and-Research-Oriented Agricultural University — Hunan Agricultural University
Hunan Agricultural University is a provincial key higher institution with more than fifty years of educational history. Located in Furong District, Changsha, it covers an area of 2.27 square kilometers. The campus environment is elegant, and it is a garden-style unit in Hunan. The university was formed on March 9, 1951, through the merger of the Hunan Provincial Xiuye Vocational College and the Agricultural College of Hunan University, then named "Hunan Agricultural College." In February 1994, with the approval of the State Education Commission, it was renamed Hunan Agricultural University. Through 58 years of development, the university has grown from a single-discipline, teaching-oriented agricultural college into a teaching-and-research-oriented university featuring agriculture as its characteristic and comprehensively developing multiple disciplines including agriculture, engineering, liberal arts, science, economics, management, law, medicine, and education.
Hunan's First Railway and Transportation University — the Former Changsha Railway University
The predecessor of Changsha Railway University was the Central South College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, established in 1953. It developed into a multidisciplinary higher institution mainly focused on engineering, with coordinated development of engineering, science, liberal arts, economics, management, law, art, and other disciplines. Changsha Railway University was one of the first batch of institutions in the country authorized to confer doctoral degrees, one of the first 100 institutions in the country to receive the Fok Ying Tung Foundation Award, one of the first institutions in the country to connect to the international INTERNET and the China Education and Research Network, and the first university in Hunan to establish a board of directors, increasingly strengthening its horizontal ties with society. In 2000, according to a decision of the Ministry of Education, Changsha Railway University merged with Central South University of Technology and Hunan Medical University to form Central South University.
Hunan's First University of Chinese Medicine — Hunan University of Chinese Medicine
The predecessor of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine was the Hunan Traditional Chinese Medicine Training School, established in 1953. In 2006, with the approval of the Ministry of Education, it was renamed to its current name. The institution is located in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. It currently has 2 colleges, 3 affiliated hospitals, 5 departments, 4 divisions, 5 research institutes, 1 affiliated pharmaceutical factory, and 1 postdoctoral research station. It has 5 doctoral discipline points and 15 master's discipline points, with 1 national ministry-level key discipline and 8 provincial-level key disciplines. It has now formed a multi-level, multi-specialty, multi-format higher education system for Chinese medicine encompassing graduate education, undergraduate and junior college education, international student education, and adult education, with its overall scale of operation ranking among the forefront of Chinese medicine universities nationwide.
China's First Member Unit Accepted by the International Association of Packaging — Hunan University of Technology
Hunan University of Technology is a multidisciplinary university with a 50-year educational history. It obtained the right to confer master's degrees in 2003, was rated as an excellent institution in undergraduate teaching work by the Ministry of Education in 2008, and obtained the qualification to enroll international students in 2009. The university is located in Zhuzhou, an old industrial base in central China and a major industrial town in Hunan. With packaging education as its characteristic, it is China's first member unit accepted by the International Association of Packaging Research Institutes (IAPRI), and is the location of the Ministry of Education's National Teaching Guidance Subcommittee for Packaging Engineering in Regular Higher Institutions, the director unit of the Packaging Education Committee of the China Packaging Federation, and the China Packaging Technology Training Center. The university covers a total area of 4,069 mu, with total fixed assets of 1,265.44 million yuan. It has 16 teaching colleges (departments) and 1 independent college; 21 master's degree points, 51 undergraduate programs, and 25 junior college programs; and currently has more than 34,500 full-time students and 2,581 faculty and staff, including 243 professors, 834 associate professors, 155 doctoral degree holders, and 10 doctoral supervisors. Over the past 4 years, the university has undertaken 12 national-level teaching reform projects and 43 provincial and ministerial-level teaching reform projects; won 2 national teaching achievement awards and 40 provincial teaching achievement awards; published 9,243 academic research papers, of which 646 were indexed by SCI, EI, and ISTP; undertaken 36 National 863 Program projects and National Natural Science and Social Science Foundation projects, and 714 provincial and ministerial-level research projects, achieving a breakthrough from zero in Hunan Provincial Natural Science Awards first prize; won 4 national science and technology progress awards, 30 provincial and ministerial-level science and technology achievement awards, and 57 patents, with disposable research funding of nearly 100 million yuan over the past 3 years. At present, the university is making every effort to build itself into a high-level teaching-oriented university and is gradually transforming into a teaching-and-research-oriented university.
China's First Public Full-Time Women's University — Hunan Women's University
Hunan Women's University was founded in 1985 and is located in Changsha, the provincial capital. The campus covers 506 mu, with a building area of 167,000 square meters. It has 9 teaching departments (divisions) and currently offers 27 (with plans for 33) junior college programs. It is currently the women's institution in China with the largest scale of operation, the most disciplines and specialties, and outstanding educational characteristics, and is a national base for women's and gender research and training. The university has built a distinctly characteristic women's education system and formed a talent cultivation model for women with coordinated development of knowledge, ability, and quality. The university is currently the women's institution in China with the longest educational history, the largest scale of operation, the most disciplines and specialties, and outstanding educational characteristics, having cultivated tens of thousands of outstanding female talents for the country. More than 20 countries and regions have sent women's delegations to visit the university, and it has become an important window for international exchange in China's women's education.
Hunan's Largest Private University — Hunan International Economics University
Hunan International Economics University was founded in May 1997. It is a private regular undergraduate institution invested in and established by Hunan Falcon Industrial Co., Ltd., originally named "Xiangnan Liberal Arts and Science College." In 1998, the campus was relocated to the Changsha National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone and renamed "Hunan International Economics University." The total campus area is 4,700 mu, with an additional water area of 3,000 mu. The building area is 570,000 square meters, and total assets exceed 2 billion yuan. The main campus covers 1,700 mu; the Qingshui Lake campus covers 3,000 mu. In 2000, it was approved by the Hunan Provincial People's Government as a private regular higher vocational college and included in the national enrollment plan. In 2005, it was upgraded to an undergraduate institution. The university has successively been selected as one of "China's Top Ten Famous Private Universities with Over Ten Thousand Students" and "China's First Top 20 Private Universities by Comprehensive Strength." The university has steadily ranked among the top three in China's private university rankings and is praised as one of China's youngest private undergraduate institutions with the greatest development potential.