[Seventy-five Years of Building Dreams Together, A Decade of Leaps and Remarkable Chapters] Cultivating Top Talents through Cross-disciplinary Integra

2024-10-16

The university fully implements the Party's educational policies, adheres to the fundamental task of cultivating virtue and fostering talent, insists on the principle of "undergraduate education as the foundation" in university education, and promotes the "Four Returns." Focusing on the "Three Advances and Three Highs" strategic goals and tasks proposed by the university's CPC Representative Conference, the university is deeply implementing the talent cultivation reform that integrates "New engineering courses + new business courses + new liberal arts courses" with the development of science. By using cross-disciplinary integration as the driving force, the university is promoting the high-quality development of undergraduate education and teaching.

Cultivating virtue to shape the soul, and solidifying the foundation of faith. Under the strong leadership of the CPC HUTB Committee, a "Big Ideological and Political Education" framework has been formed, with unified leadership by the CPC HUTB Committee, joint efforts of the CPC Committee Office and Principal Office, collaborative action among departments, and implementation by schools and faculties, ensuring a comprehensive approach to ideological and political education. The university has established a "1+9+N" ideological and political education curriculum system, created a specialized teaching brand for the course "Introduction to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," integrated excellent traditional Chinese culture into the compulsory ideological and political courses, and offered a series of elective ideological and political courses with distinctive characteristics of the university. A teaching and research center for curriculum ideological and political education has been established to promote the alignment and integration of ideological and political education across all courses. In the past decade, the university has launched 9 provincial-level model courses on ideological and political education, including "Trade Economics" and others, as well as 45 university-level model courses on ideological and political education, such as "Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture." These courses closely integrate ideological and political education with traditional virtues, modern general education, safety education, labor education, and more.

HUTB holds opening ceremony of Xiangjiang Academy·Hong Class

The chief leaders, academic mentors, and all Hong Class students took a commemorative group photo on the Jinjie staircase in the library.

Through cross-disciplinary integration, a high ground for talent cultivation has been established. The university actively aligns with the nation's major strategic needs and the development demands of Hunan's "4×4" modern industrial system, implementing adjustments to its undergraduate program structure and vigorously cultivating top-tier innovative talents. The university has established the Xiangjiang Academy and launched 5 "Hong Classes" to cultivate top-tier innovative talents in the fields of artificial intelligence and advanced computing. It was the first in the province to offer 12 Academician Excellence Classes in fields such as digital economy, big data, and artificial intelligence. The university has also set up 9 talent cultivation tracks, including Digital Intelligence Accounting and Digital Intelligence Legal Studies, for nurturing exceptional talents. Furthermore, the university founded the Graduate College for Engineers, offering 3 Graduate College for Engineers classes for cultivating urgently needed national "great craftsmen." It has organized three sessions of Digital Intelligence Talent Technical Training Camp and continuously implemented the "Qizhi Plan" for three consecutive years. The university's excellence-focused talent cultivation has benefited over 8,000 students, with the largest enrollment scale and the most diverse range of programs in the province.

Focusing on the frontier, the university promotes the "dual optimization" of disciplines and majors. The university aims at the goal of building a world-class university and strengthening its advantageous disciplines, implementing the "dual optimization" of disciplines and majors. In recent years, the university has introduced 23 new emerging undergraduate programs in fields urgently needed by national industries, such as integrated circuit design and integrated systems, and industrial intelligence. It has also eliminated or merged 13 undergraduate programs, with an adjustment ratio of 95%. The university has been approved for 19 national-level first-class undergraduate programs and 33 provincial-level first-class undergraduate programs. The academic structure has shifted from being "dominated by economics and management majors" to a "dominant focus on science and engineering majors, with interdisciplinary integration and development." The undergraduate talent cultivation is precisely aligned with Hunan's "4×4" modern industrial system (accounting for 76%), significantly enhancing the university's ability and level in supporting the vision of "Three Highlands, Four New Missions."

Empowering with digital intelligence to promote the transformation and upgrade of courses. The university has fully implemented the reform of the blended teaching model, guiding students to take an active role in exploration and promoting deep learning. Over the past ten years, the university has had 4 courses recognized as national-level first-class undergraduate courses and 85 courses recognized as provincial-level first-class undergraduate courses (high-quality online open courses). The university has launched 30 digital intelligence courses and 10 industry-education integration courses at the university level. It took the lead in the province to build a general education curriculum system for artificial intelligence, developed knowledge maps and competency maps, and achieved 100% coverage of the "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course. An AI teaching assistant system, covering all disciplines, has been deployed to provide students with 24/7 uninterrupted learning support and Q&A services. The "AI-empowered Course Cluster: Intelligent Teaching Assistants and Innovative Digital Intelligence Talent Development" has been recognized as a typical application scenario in Hunan Province for "Artificial Intelligence + Higher Education."

Comprehensively deepening science-education integration with projects as a key approach. The university adheres to the "Four Orientations" and has established 120 high-level national and provincial research innovation platforms, including the Xiangjiang Laboratory and the National Natural Science Foundation's National Center for Basic Science projects. A total of RMB294 million has been invested to establish 88 advanced laboratories, such as the Metaverse Technology Laboratory and Intelligent Energy Laboratory. With large-scale projects as a key approach, the university has achieved "original innovation from 0 to 1," "results transformation from 1 to 10," and "industrial scaling from 10 to 100."

Through collaboration with enterprises, the university pragmatically advances industry-education integration. The university collaborates with nearly 200 government and enterprise organizations, including the Xiangjiang New Area (the first national-level new area in central China), Huawei, JD Group, and others, to engage in government-industry-university-research cooperation. Together, they have established 78 practice bases in areas such as data intelligence and smart society. The university has also built practice teaching platforms, with approval to establish national-level "specialized, high-end and innovation-driven" integrated circuit industry academy, as well as the "Integrated Circuit Industry Academy" and "Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Modern Industry Academy" in Hunan Province. These initiatives aim to tightly integrate innovation resources with key industry development.

In 2023, our university's faculty course team won the second prize in the National Higher Education Teaching Innovation Competition

Focusing on development, the university deepens teaching and research practices. The university focuses on the digital-intelligent transformation and high-quality development of higher education, and actively engages in educational and teaching research. In 2018 and 2022, the university consecutively won the second prize of teaching achieves at national level. It has also received 1 Special Prize, 7 First Prizes, 7 Second Prizes, and 19 Third Prizes in provincial-level educational and teaching achievement awards. The university has initiated 416 teaching reform research projects at the provincial level or higher, as well as 101 education science planning projects. Additionally, it has won 2 First Prizes and 2 Second Prizes in the Provincial Educational Science Research Outstanding Achievement Award.

Competitions foster mutual growth in teaching and learning, honing teaching elites. The university implements a new model for the development of teachers' teaching abilities, combining competitions with training to promote teaching. The "Academician Teaching Award" has been established to deepen teaching reforms and accelerate faculty development. Over the past decade, our teachers have achieved remarkable results in classroom teaching competitions, including 1 National Special Prize, 1 First Prize, 6 Second Prizes, and 5 Third Prizes, as well as 5 Provincial Special Prizes and 39 First Prizes.

Using science and technology as a guide to cultivate top-tier innovative talents. In the past decade, our students have won over 700 national-level awards and nearly 3,000 provincial-level awards in academic competitions. In the 26th China Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Competition National Finals, our university's humanoid robot (physical competition) and quadruped rapid logistics (robot dog) teams won the national championship. In the 14th National College Student E-commerce "Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship" Challenge's Cross-border E-commerce Practical Competition National Finals, our team won the special prize.

Our students participate in 26th China Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Competition National Finals

The advantages in teaching are becoming more prominent, and the quality of enrollment and employment is rising. In the past decade, the admission score lines for various academic programs at the university have been rising year by year, placing us among the top tier of universities in the province, with a significant improvement in the quality of our student intake. The university has optimized the allocation of its enrollment plan, with the proportions for science and engineering, economics and management, and law, literature, and arts programs reaching 55%, 30%, and 15%, respectively. The CPC HUTB Committee leads the employment work with the "Top Leader Project," promoting employment efforts across all personnel, processes, and aspects. It has developed an employment guidance system that integrates both online and offline platforms and implemented the "2+2+3+N" employment education model. The quality of employment consistently ranks among the top three in the province, with both graduate and employer satisfaction rates exceeding 97%. The university has implemented a special initiative called "Visiting Enterprises to Expand Job Opportunities," visiting over 1,500 employers and establishing more than 400 employment and internship bases. It has leveraged campus recruitment as a main platform, organizing exclusive job fairs for "Top 500 companies," "listed companies," and "corporate headquarters." Additionally, the university has built an "Internet + Precision Employment" smart service platform, actively using AI technology to achieve precise job matching. The university has been awarded several honors, including the "Top Leader Project" Excellent Organization Award for Employment and Entrepreneurship Work in Hunan Province, Model University for College Student Employment and Entrepreneurship in Hunan, Advanced Unit for Graduate Employment and Entrepreneurship Work in Hunan, and Civilized Service Window Unit in Hunan Province.

With the east wind blowing strong, a thousand sails set off; like a hundred boats racing, each striving to be the first. The university will continue to build its talent development brand, comprehensively improving the quality of self-directed talent development, and make new and greater contributions to promoting the development of industries and regional economic and social growth, as well as advancing the new practices of Chinese-style modernization in Hunan.

(Reported by the Undergraduate School)