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About Yunnan Normal University
Located in Kunming which is called “City of Perennial Spring” and conceived in the Teachers College of the National Southwest Associated University which was established in 1938 from the merger of Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University, Yunnan Normal University is a provincial key university that has a long and fine tradition. In 1946, the three prestigious universities were moved back to their original campuses in the north of China but the Teachers College remained in Kunming. It adopted the name of the National Kunming Normal College in 1946, Kunming Normal College in 1950 and Yunnan Normal University in 1984 respectively. In 1999, Yunnan Education College and Yunnan Sports College merged into Yunnan Normal University. In its development of over seventy years, the university has adhered to its motto of “perseverance in personality; devotion to teaching and learning; pursuit of virtue and wisdom”. It has a fairly complete education system for offering either post-doctoral, doctoral, master’s or bachelor’s degrees to full-time, part-time, vocational, adult and international students. Up to now, it has produced more than 200,000 graduates of different kinds and is rightfully praised as the cradle of qualified teachers on this lateritic plateau.
The university covers a total area of 3,330 Mu(about 543 acres). It consists of 23 schools plus two independent schools and more than 40 research institutes. It has now over 25,000 full-time students pursuing different degrees and 15,000 students in the School of Continuing Education. Its library is the provincial center of the data resources of Chinese higher education and houses more than 2,700,000 copies of books of various kinds with a new-generation digitalized service system. The Journal of Yunnan Normal University (social sciences) ranks among the top thirty of its kind(CSSCI) in China, The Journal of Yunnan Normal University (natural sciences) is an acclaimed core journal in China, and The Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Teaching and Research on Chinese as a Foreign Language) is the first one of its kind in China.
The university offers such branches of learning as literature, history, philosophy, law, education, management, economics, art, science and technology with teacher education as its characteristic feature. Its interdisciplinary orientation helps the students lay a solid foundation for future development. It offers 70 bachelor’s programs, 144 master’s and doctoral programs, of which ten are professional master’s programs like MBA and General Education. It is one of the first 24 universities in China that offer the master’s program for Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages.
Through innovative reforms on teaching methodology, contents, curriculums as well as training models, the university has accomplished the transformation from a traditional teacher-training university to a teaching-research oriented modern university with teacher education as its typical trait. It has some qualified teaching teams, innovative courses, special programs and experimental teaching bases that rank among the best in China in their respective fields. It carries out some key reforms in terms of education system, bilingual teaching and teaching innovation at the national level. It has 20 state-level “Quality Projects” under construction. It is one of the three universities of its kind in China that offer free teacher-training programs. The Education Affairs Department, the Enrolment Department and the Adult Education Department of this university have received state-level honors of different kinds for their respective contribution. Its undergraduate teaching is rated “Excellence” in the teaching-quality assessment by the Ministry of Education of China.
The university has more than forty research centers or institutes at the national, ministerial or provincial levels, including a national solar-heater quality testing center, a Chinese education base sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of China, a China-UK solar-energy research center, a research center of sports culture sponsored by the General Administration of Sport of China, Platt American Studies Center, Ronning Canadian Studies Center, Kunming Strategy Research Institute for Pan-Asian Talent Training and Development, some key labs, engineering research centers and talent-training bases sponsored either by the Ministry of Education of China or by the provincial government. In the past five years, the university has taken on some prestigious key research projects like the National Social Science Foundation Major Project, the National Natural Science Foundation Major Project, “973” Project, “863” Project, and some key international joint projects. Its national research projects of natural sciences and social sciences number 100 plus 300 other research projects of various kinds with its research funds totaling about 200,000,000 Yuan(RMB). Some of its research findings rank among the best in China, including photocatalytic materials, studies on abstract differential equations, SPT techniques, solar-energy application and development, and new enzymes.
The university has a staff of about 2,300, of whom 1,600 are full-time teachers and 686 are professors and associate professors. Some of them are experts with honors from the Central Government, the State Council of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the Ministry of Education of China. The university has invited about 100 well-known experts from 40 countries and regions all over the world as its Honorary Professors, Guest Professors or Adjunct Professors, including Professor Chen-Ning Franklin Yang, a Nobel Prize winner, Professor Yang Le, Professor Guo Bailing and Professor Dai Ruwei who are academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Gehan Amaratunga from Cambridge University, an academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, U.K., Professor Seymour Topping, former Administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, managing editor for the New York Times and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and Dr. John Naisbitt, a well-known futurist.
The university boasts of its international vision and modern ideas. It is one of the ten universities selected by the Ministry of Education of China and the Office of Chinese Language Council a HSK test center and a CFL test center. It is one of the first Chinese universities selected by the Chinese Government to establish Confucius Institute abroad and provide Government Scholarship and Confucius Institute Scholarship to international students. Up to now, it has established one Confucius Institute, three Confucius Classrooms and five Chinese culture centers abroad. It has cooperation with 100 universities and research institutes in Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries as well as in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan of China. It has a training base for middle-school English teachers in southwest China sponsored by UNESCO and is one of the two universities in Yunnan Province that are authorized to enroll students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan of China.
The university has won honors for its contribution to our national unity, educational development, cultural construction, moral education and legal construction from the State Council, the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Education of China and the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee as well as from the provincial government and the local governments at different levels. Some of its students have won honors from governments and institutions at different levels for their scientific and technological innovation, achievements in moral education and praiseworthy actions for helping other people as well as other prestigious awards. Some students from this university have become medal winners in the Olympic Games or the Paralympic Games in Beijing and in Athens.
Facing new challenges and opportunities and carrying out its integrative development strategy, Yunnan Normal University standing on a vantage point and having a far-sighted view will build itself into one of the best of its kind in China with typical local features.