[Seventy-five Years of Building Dreams Together, A Decade of Leaps and Remarkable Chapters] Strive for Excellence in Cultivating Innovative Talents, W
2024-10-14
The Graduate School of the university always adheres to the Party's overall leadership, implements the Party's educational policies, and cultivates talent for the Party and the country. Over the past decade, under the correct leadership of the CPC HUTB Committee and administration, the development of degree and graduate education has undergone remarkable changes. From just 3 degree programs and 43 enrolled students in 2014, it has now expanded to 33 degree programs and 2,180 enrolled students (including international students), with the scale of graduate education continuously growing. The university has progressed from the approval of master's degree granting units to achieving a breakthrough in the establishment of doctoral degree granting units, raising the level of graduate education. Especially since the start of the "14th Five-Year Plan," the Graduate School has closely aligned with the university's strategic goals of "Three Advances and Three Highs," making vigorous efforts and progressing resolutely. It has continuously promoted the construction of degree programs, educational instruction, student management, and enrollment and employment, achieving significant results. The graduate education initiative has entered a new chapter, contributing to the university's comprehensive realization of the "Three-upgrade Strategy" goals and providing a strong force for high-quality talent cultivation to help achieve Hunan's beautiful vision of “Three Highlands, Four New Missions.”
Committed to the principle of cultivating virtue and nurturing talent, the university has achieved remarkable success in ideological and political education for graduate students. "To nurture talent, one must first shape the soul." The university consistently upholds the principle of cultivating the soul and educating people with Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It focuses on fostering virtue and pursuing excellence as its main thread, coordinating the ideological and political work of graduate students to guide young students in establishing correct worldviews, outlooks on life, and values. By engaging with students at the grassroots level, the university promptly understands and monitors their ideological dynamics, analyzes and assesses situations, and implements precise strategies to help students steer their thoughts in the right direction. 94 individuals were awarded honors such as "Outstanding Student Party Members" and "Outstanding Graduates" at ordinary higher education institutions in Hunan Province. Graduate student Lei Xiaodong from the 2021 cohort donated hematopoietic stem cells to save another's life, earning the title "Changsha Good Person - A Local Lei Feng," which received extensive media coverage. The university has been recognized multiple times as an "Advanced Collective" in the research and practice of ideological and political education for graduate students in Hunan Province.
Graduate student Lei Xiaodong donates stem cells to save another person's life
The university is comprehensively deepening the responsibilities of supervisors in fostering virtue and educating students. It has introduced a series of regulations, including the Implementation Rules for Graduate Supervisors' Responsibilities in Fostering Virtue at HUTB and the Management Measures for Graduate Supervisor Training and Assessment at HUTB, to standardize supervisors' educational practices. Furthermore, it is actively advancing the integration of Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era into textbooks, classrooms, and students' minds, ensuring that ideological and political education is deep and substantive. Our graduate supervisors have won the provincial first prize in the ideological and political education teaching competition for graduate courses in Hunan Province for two consecutive years, and the university has been awarded the title of "Outstanding Organizing Unit."
The university awarded the title of "Outstanding Organizing Unit" in the ideological and political education teaching competition for graduate courses in Hunan Province
The university is aligning with national strategic needs, accelerating the quality enhancement of its degree programs. From 3 master's degree programs in 2014, the university has rapidly developed to 33 master's degree programs and 1 doctoral degree program, completing in just ten years what has taken similar provincial universities about twenty to thirty years to achieve. Especially in the 2024 review for degree program authorization, the university made significant progress in promoting doctoral program development. It added seven new master's professional degree programs in Digital Economy, Mechanical Engineering, Library and Information Science, Resources and Environment, Taxation, Social Work, and Sports, ranking second in the province for the total number of master's degree program authorizations.
Focusing on the development of urgently needed disciplines and programs, the university is actively promoting the optimization and adjustment of its academic fields. In order to implement the decisions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council regarding the deepening of reforms in the higher education discipline and professional system, the university is actively developing urgently needed disciplines and interdisciplinary programs such as "Digital Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence) +," "Green +," and "Culture + Technology," while optimizing and adjusting the primary disciplines and professional categories related to these degree programs. The university's talent cultivation has further strengthened its relevance and adaptability, fully demonstrating the capability of its graduate education to serve economic and social development.
The university implements the "Three Integrations" (integration of disciplines, integration of science and education, integration of industry and education) in its education model, continuously innovating the postgraduate training approach. In response to the digital intelligence era, a series of reforms in graduate education have been carried out, promoting the transformation of graduate education and teaching towards a digital-intelligent thinking model, interdisciplinary integration, and innovative practice. Over 120 theoretical articles on reform exploration have been published in authoritative journals such as Academic Degrees & Graduate Education and China Higher Education. Several teaching reform achievements have won national and provincial teaching achievement awards.
In terms of disciplinary integration, we have fully established a multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and integrated professional curriculum system for talent development. Our university offers courses in big data, artificial intelligence, "dual carbon" technologies, excellent traditional Chinese culture, and Hunan revolutionary culture across disciplines such as economics, management, law, literature, and the arts. The concepts of "digital intelligence (AI) +", "green +", and "culture + technology" are deeply integrated into the knowledge systems of various disciplines, creating distinctive features in the development of curriculum and professional programs. Our university has been selected for the first batch of professional degree graduate online demonstration courses by the Steering Committee for Guidance in Teaching in Higher Education Institutions, with two courses included. We have established 19 graduate teaching quality projects, including provincial-level excellent teaching teams, high-quality (exemplary) courses, and excellent textbooks.
In terms of the integration of science, technology, and education, our university fully leverages the educational functions of national and provincial high-level scientific innovation platforms. Our university actively explores effective pathways for cultivating top-tier innovative digital intelligence talents by relying on major platforms such as the National Natural Science Foundation's National Center for Basic Science projects and the Xiangjiang Laboratory. We have innovatively implemented educational models that integrate science, technology, and education, such as the Xiangjiang Academy·Hong Class (graduate) and project-based systems. Additionally, we have hosted 30 provincial and university-level graduate quality enhancement projects, including summer schools, innovation forums, and academic competitions, fostering academic innovation, interaction, and broadening the academic horizons of our graduate students.
The university hosts quality enhancement projects such as the Hunan graduate discipline competitions and summer schools
In terms of industry-education integration, our university comprehensively deepens the effectiveness of the collaborative education mechanism between the university and enterprises. Our university has jointly established 19 provincial-level industry-education integration bases for joint training of graduates with enterprises and research institutes such as SANY and Jingjia Micro, and has set up more than 80 provincial and university-level graduate industry-education practice and training bases. The participation rate of graduate students has reached 100%. We have cooperated with industry enterprises and research institutes to jointly develop more than 20 industry-education integration courses, achieving collaborative textbook writing, joint participation in course teaching, and shared evaluation of teaching outcomes.
Our university focuses on cultivating innovative thinking, and the training of innovative talents has been highly effective. In the past decade, the Graduate School has initiated or completed 389 provincial-level graduate research and innovation projects, with the number of approved projects per capita ranking among the top in provincial universities. The university has achieved over 640 high-level research outcomes, including more than 400 papers published in renowned domestic and international journals such as Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Management Sciences in China, and has been granted 129 national invention patents. Nearly 100 of our graduate students have successfully been admitted to doctoral programs at renowned universities such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Wuhan University, Nankai University, and Central South University. Yan Yue, a graduate student from the 2020 cohort, was included in the list published by People's Daily of the 100 outstanding graduate representatives who won National Scholarship for Undergraduate and Graduate Students for the 2021-2022 academic year, with only two students from Hunan Province making the list.
Graduate Yan Yue is included in the list published by People's Daily of the 100 outstanding graduate representatives
who won National Scholarship for Undergraduate and Graduate Students for the 2021-2022 academic year
Our university is awarded the "Excellent Organization Award" and the "Outstanding Individual" honor in the National Post-Graduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling
Our university actively organizes graduate students to participate in academic competitions, continually enhancing their awareness of academic frontiers and innovation capabilities. The quantity and quality of awards in academic competitions have risen year by year. In the past five years, our graduate students have won 483 national and provincial-level awards in competitions such as the National Post-Graduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling, China Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Competition, and MPACC Student Case Competition, including 196 national awards and 47 provincial first prizes. The university has also received the "Excellent Organization Award" multiple times.
(Reported by Graduate School)
