About Hunan University
Hunan University, situated at the foot of the picturesque Yuelu Hill and on the west bank of the rippling Xiang River in the historically and culturally renowned City of Changsha, capital city of Hunan Province, is honored as an "Ancient Millenarian Academy, Famous Centennial University". It is one of the key universities affiliated with the Ministry of Education and is now included in the state's "Project 211" and "Project 985" for priority investment and construction. Professor Liu Keli and Professor Zhao Yueyu are respectively the Party secretary of the CPC Hunan University Committee and the president of the university.
Hunan University, dating back to Yuelu Academy's foundation in 976 A.D., is one of the four famous Academies of the Song Dynasty. The university has maintained its culture and education even through the many changes during the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. It was reconstructed into Hunan Higher School in 1903, renamed Hunan University in 1926, and subordinated to the Republic of China's Ministry of Education as one of several state universities in 1937. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Central People's Government appointed Li Da, a well-known philosopher and educator, the first president of Hunan University after liberation. Chairman Mao Zedong inscribed the name of the University. In 1953, in the readjustment of the institutions of higher education of China, Hunan University was named the Central-South Institute of Civil Engineering, then Hunan Polytechnic College, and was finally, renamed Hunan University in 1959. Since 1963, the University has been affiliated with the Ministry of Mechanical Industry. In 1978, it was approved as a key university of China, and became directly affiliated with the Ministry of Education in 1998. In 2000, Hunan University and Hunan Institute of Finance and Economics merged to create a new Hunan University.
Carrying on good educational tradition during the long history of personnel cultivation, Hunan University has focused on the pith of the admonition of "Seeking Truth from Facts; Daring to be Pioneers" and the style of "Be Profound, Intelligent, Diligent and Dedicated to the Pursuit of Knowledge", and taken shape of distinctive teaching featuring "solid foundation, active thinking, strong adaptability, and good comprehensive quality". Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the university has produced more than 160,000 senior professionals, of whom large numbers of the graduates have grown into academic expertise, entrepreneurs and managers in governmental departments, and 13 alumni have been elected as members of the Chinese Academy of Science or the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The University now has the Graduate School and 23 colleges and departments. Professional disciplines involve 11 subject categories, such as philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, management, and medicine, offering 25 first-order disciplines authorized to confer Ph.D. degrees, 41 first-order disciplines authorized to confer Master's degree, 20 academic degree authorizations, 2 key first-order disciplines at the national level and 14 key second-order disciplines at the national level, and 21 post-doctoral programs.
It has a staff of over 4,600 with a faculty of nearly 2000, of which, nearly 1,200 are professors and associate professors, 4 are members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, 5 are invited-members of both Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering, 23 are members of the state's Thousands Talents Program, 21 are Cheongkong Chair Professors, 15 gain the financial support from the National Outstanding Youth Fund, 5 are members of the Academic Degree Commission under the State Council, 21 are members of the state's Outstanding Talents Project of the 21st century, 102 are New Century Excellent Talents in support programs of the Ministry of Education, 16 are chair professors of the Lotus Scholarship Program of Hunan Province, 189 are Council Experts for Special Allowance, 4 are winners of the National Distinguished Teacher Prizes, and 7 innovative teams are supported by Program for Cheongkong Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University. The student body totals nearly 30,000, of which over 20,600, are undergraduates and 13,000 are graduates.
The University has established the national basic-course teaching bases in engineering (chemistry), the national undergraduates' cultural-quality education base, 7 national-level teaching teams, 6 bilingual model courses, 6 innovation experiment fields for talent cultivation, and 3 national model experimental teaching centers. In recent years, the University has had a lot of achievements, such as one Special Award, 3 First Prizes, 11 Second and Third Prizes in the National Teaching Achievement, and gained 25 national Excellent Courses. In the past fiveyears, students from Hunan University have won nearly 900 awards for the contests above provincial level, including first prize of the National Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Work Competition, champion of the CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest, first prize of the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM), and perseverance award of the Formula SAE.
Hunan University has been equipped with 2 state key laboratories, 1 national engineering technology research cent
er, 5 key laboratories of the Ministry of Education, 5 provincial or ministerial-level engineering technology centers, 17 key laboratories of Hunan Province, and 13 provincial-level social science research bases of Hunan Province. In the past decade, it has undertaken around 9,000 scientific research projects at various levels, gained 3 second-class award of the national natural science, 1 national first-class award of the Science and Technology Advancement, 17 national second-class awards of the Science and Technology Advancement, 3 second-class awards of the Outstanding Achievements for Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities. Besides, technopark co., ltd. and 53 advance-level platforms for Enterprise-University-Research Institute have been set up, and the base of Enterprise-University-Research Institute Cooperation has been established in Lugu High-tech Industrial Park. The Enterprise-University-Research Institute Cooperation relationship has covered 32 provinces (districts, cities) and 400 plus enterprises.
The university has established academic exchanges with 120 universities and research institutes across the world. Experts recruited every year have come to over 300 for long or short terms. Long-term overseas students from over 40 countries and areas reach around 1000. Confucius Institute of Hunan University, jointly cooperated by Hunan University and Honam University, has become the first overseas Confucius institute set up jointly by Hunan province.
The university covers a total area of 1,396,000 square meters with a construction area of over 981,400 square meters. With a total collection of over 5.9 million books and a digital resource (Chinese and English) size of 57,720.7 GB, the university is equipped with the advanced campus network of IPv6, and the 10Gb wired cable backbone network above the ground has covered all the teaching buildings, office buildings and students' apartments, accompanied by the simultaneous coverage of the wireless campus network. The computers connected by the campus network have amounted to over 30, 000, with the exit bandwidth of 3.5 G, hence the digital campus is around the corner. Furthermore, the National Supercomputing Center in Changsha is under construction.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, has always received great care and high appraise from the senior leaders of both the Central Government and local authority, such as Liu Shaoqi, Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, who came and inspected Hunan University and wrote the inscription of "Cradle of the Talents of Xiang and Chu", "The Kingdom of Chu, unique home of talents; today's academy of Yuelu, the prosperous cradle of all", and "Ancient Millenarian Academy, Famous Centennial University".