2015-09-20
From September 17 to 20, our school convened the 2015 fall teaching conference, which is the largest teaching conference since the establishment of SUSTC. The conference was constituted by three parts: export reports, reports of SUSTC’s main leaders and directors of each department and group discussion. On this teaching conference, all the teachers of SUSTC drew upon all useful opinions, analyzed the current situation, advantages and challenges of the undergraduate education in SUSTC, and thought and planned the future of SUSTC’s undergraduate education. Based on the development goals of constructing a world first class “high-level, international, research-based” university and Trinitarian strategic thought of “research, innovation and entrepreneurship”, this teaching conference emphasized the important role of education and teaching in the overall development of SUSTC, specified the goal and location of the cultivation of undergraduate talents by SUSTC, set the features of education and teaching of SUSTC, and discussed some problems deeply.
On the afternoon of September 17th, Professor Dong Zhiyong, head of the Department of Educational Administration of Peking University, gave a keynote speech titled Some Thoughts on the Reform of Undergraduate Education and Teaching in Peking University for the teachers of our school, in which he introduced the cultivation goal and policy of the undergraduate education, liberal education system, course construction, current situation of education and teaching, reformation on the enrollment system, and cultivation mode and experience of top-notch personnel of Peking University. His discussion on the contribution to social and economic development, significant impacts for human thoughts and sciences and technologies of world-class universities, and the explanation of strengthening basis, facilitating intersection, respecting selection and improving teaching of undergraduate education, and the interpretation of the cultivation goal of “Cultivating Personnel Leading the Future” for undergraduate talents by Peking University provided precious experience for the development of the undergraduate education and teaching of SUSTC in new period, and initiated the profound thinking of SUSTC teachers and teaching managers on the undergraduate education and teaching of SUSTC.
On the afternoon of September 18th, SUSTC’s teaching conference of 2015 was convened officially, in which nearly 180 persons, including SUSTC leadership, members of Teaching Steering Committee, directors of departments and units and all teachers of SUSTC participated. It was chaired by Vice-president Wu Chuanyue, on which President Chen Shiyi made a keynote speech titled Reform and Revolution, Ensuring First-class Teaching Quality in a Down-to-earth Way. He pointed out, that education is the foundation of a university. The next five years are the key period for SUSTC to develop rapidly. SUSTC will seek for excellent teaching, focus on innovation, and strengthen the brand construction of SUSTC’s teaching vigorously, carry it out strictly, set up the high-quality teaching brand of SUSTC on the basis of excellent student resource, high-level teachers, curriculum system connected with world-class universities, personnel training mode with elitism and personalization, international academic communication platform for students, emphasizing the training of student ability, practice and scientific research, making SUSTC a yearning university for students, and SUSTC graduates the most popular excellent talents by the society.
Vice-president Wu Chuanyue gave a keynote speech titled How to Understand and Realize the Teaching Quality of First-class Universities, in which he pointed out the teaching development goals of SUSTC: Reach to the first level in China within five years, and the first level in the world within ten years. He pointed out that “it is the common wish of the staff in SUSTC, and the promise to Shenzhen, parents and students that SUSTC’s teaching reaches to the first level in China, even in the world”.
Wang Dejun, director of the Teaching Department, gave a report titled About the Current Situation and Thinking on the Undergraduate Education and Teaching of SUSTC, reporting the undergraduate education and teaching of SUSTC comprehensively from four aspects of the return to education essence (what kind of talents shall be cultivated), personnel training mode (what to teach), education and teaching method (how to teach) and the reform of education and teaching (how to reform), and introducing the current situation of teaching, features formed, problems existed in SUSTC and the direction of future reform .
On teaching conference on the afternoon of September 18th and the morning of 19th, directors and representatives of the Department of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Materials, Electronics, Finance, Mathematics, the College of the Environment, the Language Center and the Sports Center gave special reports of the teaching in each department for all the teachers. In the teaching report of each department, we see the distinctive teaching ideas and cultivation modes of each department based on their own major, and the work ethos of positive thinking, dedication and innovation of SUSTC teachers in the undergraduate teaching. High-level international teachers with international view and experience, spirit of seeking for excellence in scientific research and teaching, daring to challenge and transcend are the precious resources of SUSTC and the guarantee for SUSTC to be a world-class university in the future.
The conference of September 19th was constituted with two parts. In the first part of the conference, all participants were divided into five discussion groups, to discuss the problems related to teaching excitedly and deeply, such as the perfection of “2+2” personnel training mode, personnel training features of SUSTC, the improvement of tutorial system, the implementation of trimester system, the construction of online course resources, the supervision and evaluation of teaching quality, teaching in English, etc.. Professor Wang Duo, Huang Limin, Ye Fei, Deng Yi and Xu Baomin gave a concluding statement of the discussion of each group respectively.
In the second part of the conference of September 19th, the leaders participated in the conference made a concluding statement for undergraduate teaching from the point of their own responsibilities. In the concluding statement, Vice-president Tang Tao emphasized that teachers shall love teaching, learn how to teach and teach well, proposed that senior professors shall give classes to lower grade students, so that students can receive better edification and training of academic thoughts, pointed out to do subject construction well, to build the best subject of SUSTC by using the best teachers, called on all the teachers to overcome the challenge of sharply increased number of students, to set an example of engaging in teaching actively, and highlighted that first-class university is not a slogan but is to cultivate first-class talents with first-class teachers and teaching.
Director Han Wei said in her concluding statement that, the teaching conference was the inspection to the teaching of undergraduate education in SUSTC. Director Han Wei indicated the problems and challenges existing in the teaching works from the perspective of student work after commenting the teaching report of each department and discussion opinions of each group; she proposed that the major in undergraduate education shall be enriched and the targeted stratified teaching shall be well performed; specialized system, double degree and system of exempt course shall be promoted; the connection between collegiate system and teaching system as well as network course and teaching system shall be enhanced; at the same time, she also indicated from the aspect of human resource management to enhance the construction of teaching staff, reform the teacher assessment and strengthen the teacher training, to ensure the teachers resources and quality for constructing a first-class university.
Professor Lu Chun,Associate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, who is in charge of international works of the university, made a concluding statement to interpret the internationalization and proposed that the internationalization of our university is to make our students totally accommodate the internationalized study and working environment when they graduated; he also said that, the university will fully guarantee the internationalization on cultivating students in aspects such as funds, system and resources. In the meantime, he appealed teachers to focus on teaching and perform their duties and responsibilities on teaching.
Chen Shiyi, President of the university made a concluding statement at the end of the meeting; he affirmed the achievements obtained from the teaching conference and the education and teaching performance of SUSTC; focused more about the undergraduate education of SUSTC, he said that it shall have characteristics and asked that every teacher shall think about carefully about that what kind of talent we want to cultivate and what the education characteristics of SUSTC are. President Chen pointed out, the students shall have international vision and sight to be the elites in various industries; the teaching shall enhance Chinese education to students while insist on developing foreign language education, bilingual education. President Chen also pointed out that we shall further develop the College System of SUSTC, not only absorbing the advantages of traditional college of Oxford and Cambridge, but also possessing the features of SUSTC and also ensuring the quality of cultivated talents. The cultural inheritance of a university lies in the teacher in it, President Chen proposed to establish the most excellent teacher team to create and inherit the university culture of SUSTC. The quality of education has always been the lifeline of a university, so we shall try our best to do the major and curriculum construction; the course of every major shall represent the level of the modern science; he also suggested that every major shall conduct evaluation to itself and invite experts from home and abroad and students to evaluate the teaching performance of every major, to truly realize the construction and continuous development of every major. In the concluding statement, President Chen emphasized the dominant position of students in education and clearly pointed out that “the future of each student is represents the future of SUSTC, we shall care about every student and make them to be elites in China and the world”.
