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Wuhan University is a key university directly under the administration of the Education Ministry of the People's Republic of China. It is located in Hubei Province's capital Wuhan known as "The thoroughfare leading to nine provinces". The university has rolling physical features with the scenic Luojia Hill in it and the beautiful East Lake by its side, seeming in picturesque disorder. Its campus is wooded and green, and has fragrant flowers everywhere all the year round, the buildings are in special architectural styles, magnificent and mansion-looking. For the above reasons, Wuhan University is widely known as one of the most beautiful universities in the world.
The university dates back to Ziqiang Institute, which was founded in 1893 by Zhang Zhidong, governor of Hubei and Hunan Provinces in late Qing Dynasty after his memorial to the throne was approved by the Qing Government. Later, it changed its name several times before it was named National Wuhan University in July 1928. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, Wuhan University moved to Leshan, Sichuan Province and returned to Luojia Hill after the victory of the war. By the end of 1946, the university had six colleges, i.e., the colleges of liberal arts, law, sciences, engineering, agriculture and medicine. Wuhan University had a glorious revolutionary tradition and enjoyed a very high academic status, with Wang Shijie, Wang Xinggong and Zhou Gengsheng as its successive presidents. Zhou Enlai, Dong Biwu, Chen Tanqiu, Deng Yingchao and Luo Ronghuan, et al. were once engaged one after another in revolutionary activities here, while a great number of well-known scholars like Gu Hongming, Zhu Kezhen, Wu Baoliang, Zha Qian, Gui Zhiting, Ye Yage, Li Siguang, Wen Yiduo, Huang Kan, Yu Dafu, Shen Congwen, Zhu Guangqian, Liu Ze, Liu Yongji, Ye Shengtao, Yang Duanliu and Li Jiannong taught here successively. In 1948, Oxford University of Britain wrote an official letter to the Ministry of Education of the Chinese National Government, confirming that bachelors of liberal arts and sciences graduated from Wuhan University and with average grades above 80 could enjoy "the senior status of Oxford".
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party and the Government have attached great importance to Wuhan University. Mao Zedong, Ye Jianying, Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian, Lu Dingyi and others had inspectioned the university personally. In 1952, after a general reshuffle of the colleges and departments of the higher educational institutions throughout the country, Wuhan University became a key university of liberal arts and sciences directly under the administration of the Ministry of Higher Education. Professor Li Da, Delegate to the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and a celebrated philosopher, economist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, held the post of president of the university for 14 years, during which the quality of teaching and the level of scientific research were further enhanced.
Since the start of China's reform and open policy, the university has achieved the great achievements through its courageous reforming, opening up, and advancing in every aspect.
Approved by the State Council, was founded on August 2nd, 2000 the new Wuhan University----an amalgamation of the original Wuhan University, Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electrical Engineering, Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping, and Hubei Medical University. The new Wuhan University (named Wuhan University hereinafter) has a vast range of prospects of development because it is a combination of 4 first-rate universities in China or in the province(Three are China's key universities of "211 Project", and one is key one of Hubei Province), whose favorable opportunities, terrain and the union arising from the fore out of Chinese universities and colleges. Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electrical Engineering was the country's best university of comprehensive strength, Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping was the best university with the disciplines of survey and cartography in the world, Hubei Medical University was the province's one key medical university as was established before 1949 and has kept developing until now.The university is a natural whole with the discipcins of philosophy, economics, law, education. Literature, history, sciences, engineering, agriculture, medicine and management, 45,000-odd students including 12,000-odd postgraduates. It has been authorized by the State Council to set up graduate schools,with 143 doctoral degrees and 217 master programs ,15 post doc circulation stations.Another 20 have been evaluated as state-level key disciplines, and 20 are listed as "211 Project" key discipline to be constructed by the State.
The university now has 5,000-odd teachers, including 3,000-odd professes and associate professors, 570-odd doctorate supervisors, 4 academicians of chinese Academy of sciences,5 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 2 academicians of the international Eurasian Academy of Sciences. The university has also 22 discipline offering "the Changjiang River program awarding scholars" for the posts of the special appointed professors.
During the past 10 years, Wuhan University completed thousands of natural sciences research projects,among which many reached international advanced levels,many won various awards including 40-odd ministerial or provincial awards each year.Time and again,the university has been on the list of top ten University in China for patent application and SCI citation.Through making its scientific research achievements serve the country's economic construction,the university has become a creation base uniting teaching,research and production.In the domain of social sciences and human studies,the university ever has its own traditional superiority with national, ministerial and provincial awards on the top among Chinese Universities. It twice got the 2nd place in the national appraisals of the excellent achievements in humanities and social sciences research in the years of 1995 and 1998. Recently a great number of achievements with even greater application value emerged,contributing a great deal to China's economic construction and social progress.
Wuhan University boasts a campus which covers an area of 5508 mu and it has a floorage of 2.42 million square metres. There are large modernized teaching buildings, laboratory buildings, gymnasiums, sports grounds, swimming pools, archive buildings, and a specimen building with more then 200,000 piees of valuable animal and plant specimens. The university's libraries have a collection of approximately 5.2 million volumes, subscribe to more then 10,000 kinds of Chinese and foreign periodicals, are the central-China canter officially decided for the "211 Project" documents--ensuring system of the Chinese universities and colleges. It now has two key State-level laboratories,three State-level discipline laboratories, two State-level research centers in engineering, six national research bases for humanities and social sciences, and seven national bases for fostering basic science personnel. Over twenty academic periodicals, Wuhan University Journal included, are published by the university, which has its own presses including an audiovisual material publishing house, colleges of foreign students education and adult education, East Lake branch school, and three attached hospitals which are all of first-class according to the official standard.
During the last ten years the university sent abroad thounds of members of different kinds under various programs, invited 300 hundred famous foreign scholars and political personages to be its part-time professors, honorary professors or guest professors, and established relations of academic cooperation and exchanges with 200-odd universities, colleges and scientific research institutions in more then 60 countries and regions.
During the past 100-odd years after its founding, Wuhan University gradually developed a fine school spirit and study style of its own, i.e., " improve oneself, promote perseverance, seek truth and make innovations", emphasis is laid on actively meeting the needs of social development, incessantly reforming its pattern of personnel training and bringing up high-level professional talents of all-round development of morality, intelligence and physique. Since 1978, Wuhan University, bathed in the spring breeze of reform and opening-up, and with a view to fostering talents at a quicker pace and in greater number, has taken the lead among all the higher educational institutions nationwide in implementing the tutorial system and the systems of credit, major minor courses, double degrees and joining a class in the middle of the course, thus bringing up a great number of outstanding talents for the society. To encourage the students to stand out in their studies, the university has instituted the systems of graduating ahead of schedule and recommending master degree candidates and doctorate candidates without examination, and has put into practice the system of streaming graduate students at midterm. The university has founded 100-odd kinds of scholarships with a total value of 10 million-odd yuan awarding about 35 percent of the students. In its history of the past 100-odd years, the university has brought up for the country over 0.28 million specialized personnel of various kinds, who are playing or have played an important part in various domains and fronts, and many of whom have become the pillars of society.
The university's course over the past 100 years has been closely bound up with the prosperity and decline of the motherland. It always has regarded China's rejuvenation as its own responsibility and has been making contributions to the prosperity of China and the progress of mankind. On the occasion of its centennial celebration in 1993, Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and other Party and State leaders presented their inscriptions of congratulations, while 47 colleges and universities aboard including Harvard University, Yale University, and Tokyo University as well as various fraternal colleges and universities at home either sent representatives to attend the celebration or sent us letter of congratulations. In November 1995, Wuhan University was listed as one of China's most celebrated universities by Science, an authoritative periodical in the international scientific field. In the meantime, the university also successfully passed the preliminary qualification assessment for "211 Project" and was included in the priority project for the development of national key universities. In 1999, Wuhan University was fixed by the Chinese central authorities as a university whose heads enjoy the (same) position of a vice-minister of the State Council. On February 13th 2001, the Education Ministry and the Leadership of Hubei Province decided to make efforts jointly in order to build Wuhan University into a "high-level university well known both at home and abroad".
Benefited from the brilliant achievements achieved during the past hundred years, the four universities' cream and the new favorable opportunities of development, and stimulated by the new challenge, Wuhan University is working hard for building a number of disciplines with the first-rate levels in the world, bring development in the relevant discipline circles of the world, achieving a large number of achievements in basic theoretical and high-technological studies, which are important, creative and even epoch-making, and fostering quite many personnel having high qualities and original ideas. By the year of 2010, it will be built into a high-level university well known both at home and abroad as well as a main force for vitalizing China and Hubei through science and education. On this basis, still greater efforts are to be make to raise the teaching, scientific research and every other work of the university to international advanced levels so that the university can enjoy high position and great prestige in the international academic circles before the middle twenty-first century when Wuhan University will be built into a first-rate university of the world.
Source: Wuhan University
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