Beijing is a city with significant culture background and numerous institutions of higher education. Walking west along ChangAn Street, you will find a garden-like university at the foot of Beijing¡¯s Western Hill, that is, North China University of Technology (NCUT). After half century¡¯s strenuous development, this university now, accompanied by China¡¯s ongoing reform, is moving forward energetically with a brand-new look.
NCUT grew out of the former state-run Peking Senior Vocational Industry High School founded in 1946 and has undergone various changes ever since the foundation of the People¡¯s Republic of China. In 1978, it became Beijing Metallurgical Institute of Mechanic and Electric Engineering under the authorization of the State Council and began offering undergraduate education. Renamed the current name in 1985, the university, originally solely administered by China Nonferrous Metal Industry Company, went under the joint leadership of the central government and Beijing Municipal Government in Sept., 1998, and was mainly governed by Beijing Government.
NCUT¡¯s construction and development has always been the concern of the Party and government leaders. NCUT leaders and a visiting delegation from California State University of US were received by Jiang Zemin in 1991. Other leaders like Li Lanqing and Wang Guangying have ever paid visits to the university.
Through its 60-year history, NCUT has always considered development as the theme, offering educational services in the spirits of regarding Beijing City as the base, facing all the nation and nonferrous metal industry, and highlighting economic and social development of the capital. Today, NCUT has become a multi-disciplinary university, which takes engineering as its primary field, combined with science, arts, economics, management and laws, and focuses on undergraduate education.
While the scale of NCUT becomes larger, it puts more attention on the improvement of its educational environment. In the last five years, the university has invested RMB300 million in constructing infrastructures, such as gym, practice building, teaching buildings No. 3 and 4, student apartment No. 8, and also poured more input into teaching equipment, with more equipment per capita than that stipulated by the Ministry of Education.
NCUT is comprised of nine colleges covering six major fields of study, providing 22 undergraduate programs. It has 12 specialties authorized to confer master¡¯s degrees, 3 specialties authorized to confer second baccalaureate degrees, and five associate's degree programs, one Beijing key lab, and two Beijing key disciplines. At present, the university has more than 9,000 full-time students from 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, over 2,000 adult students and some dozens of overseas students. For the past half century, NCUT has sent to the society more than 40,000 graduates who have been playing an important role in constructing the country.
NCUT has 455 full-time teaching staff, of whom 42.42% hold high academic titles and 67.69% have master¡¯s degrees or above, 21 people enjoy special state allowance and 59 people are awarded titles, such as Famous Teacher of Beijing Institutions, May First Labor Medal, Excellent Key Young Teacher, and Excellent Teaching Staff. They have become the backbone of NCUT in teaching, researches and technical development. The university also invited 42 famous scholars from home and abroad as guest, part-time and honorary professors.
Recent years, the university has scored eight awards at provincial or ministerial levels, transferred over 10 items of scientific research achievements, and published more than 700 academic articles, of which over 100 were collected by SCI, EI and ISTP, and printed over 150 teaching books, monographs and translated works. In 2003, research funds and published articles per teacher of NCUT were ranked high among all institutions of higher education in Beijing.
The university has established cooperation with more than 20 universities from over 10 countries, such as USA, Britain, Germany, Japan, and Australia. It is authorized to enroll students from overseas and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and exchange students with many foreign universities.
The objective of NCUT undergraduate education is to cultivate advanced applied talents with all-round development in moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetics education, strong in elementary knowledge and practical ability, innovative and creative, and adaptive to the needs of social development. For this purpose, the university has gradually established diversified educational modes which stress enforcement of elementary knowledge, enhancement of practice, instruction based on aptitudes, and cultivation in different channels.
NCUT has always put much stress on construction of labs and practice bases. Recent years, it has built 10 labs like microelectronic and communication labs, 8 practice bases such as economic management simulation, electronics and numeric control practice bases, as well as automation engineering training center together with Haier Group. All elementary teaching labs of the university have passed inspection of Beijing Education Committee. The title of Beijing Key Labs is conferred on field bus technology and automation labs, and its metalworking practice base is awarded Metalworking Practice Base for Higher Education in Beijing area by Beijing Education Committee.
The university arranges students for actual projects, which help improve their innovativeness and creativeness. Thanks to key labs of the automation program, some students can take part in research programs timely, and have produced PLC programmable experimental device with teachers¡¯ help. Students from the arts and design program have worked out several campus and environment layouts with striking themes and exquisite patterns. Led by teachers, students of the construction program participated in the plan and design of KunMing Expo projects, Beijing Olympic stadiums and gyms, and new campus of Beijing Technology and Business University and its other buildings, through which students have greatly improved their practical abilities in engineering.
The university stresses after-class scientific activities, encouraging students to take part in these activities by setting up scholarships for the second classroom and practical activities and granting funds for scientific activities. Last three years, it has held over 250 competitions, such as Challenge Cup, Scientific Campus Cup, and Electronic Design Competition, attracting nearly 2,000 man-times of students.
At the same time that NCUT enhances the cultivation of professional qualities, it pays much attention to the education of humanistic qualities. As early as in 1980, it began offering a series of courses for fostering cultural qualities around College Chinese Language and Literature and College Aesthetic Education. College Aesthetic Education edited by the university, one of state-compiled teaching books, won the second prize for outstanding teaching achievements bestowed by the Ministry of Education in 2001, and in 2002 was listed in the writing schedule of state key teaching books for higher education in the Tenth-Five period. In 1986, the university erected an art gallery, the first among all science and engineering universities and colleges. The gallery has become an important base for the education of humanistic qualities in NCUT.
Ever since 1986, the university has been holding four campus festivals every year, i.e., Science Festival, Arts Festival, Culture Festival, and Sports Festival, which have got wide participation of students and formed a sound interaction between the first and second classrooms.
After decades of arduous work, the education of humanistic qualities is blooming and has become a remarkable feature of this university. In 1992, NCUT was awarded Advanced Cultural Campus, the first of this kind in all institutions of higher education in Beijing. It was listed among pilot universities and colleges for fostering cultural qualities by the former Education Commission, and won the title of Advanced Cultural Unit of the Capital for three successive years.
Adhering to the strict school-running thought, the university purses such school spirits as solemnity, severity and strictness, which leads to a healthy atmosphere of stressing practice, telling true stories, doing useful work, and seeking actual effects. It also enhances the combination of building fine study spirits not only with relative educational targets like raising the success rates in passing graduate examinations and acquiring respective degrees, but with the party construction and ideological and political work for students and subsidizing poor students, which has made great rewarding results.
No pains, no gains. The education with distinct characteristics has brought NCUT great achievements and promises enormous potentials.
Last five years, our students have won 4 special prizes, 51 first prizes, 107 second prizes and 117 third prizes totally in various competitions and contests, such as competitions of math and math modeling, college physics and computer application, electronic design, and English contest, Challenge Cup contest of college student invention. For many years, our first-time pass rates for CET-4 are higher than average rates of other key universities. In the past three years, there are an increasing number of our students entering post-graduate study.
Since 1998, our baseball team has won three championships of state and nine of Beijing, while our woman softball team has taken one championships of state and two of Beijing. Our man basketball team, man volleyball team and woman table tennis team have ever entered into top threes among all universities and colleges of Beijing.
With solid professional foundation and high all-round qualities, the graduates from NCUT are well adaptive to the society, hardworking and aspirant, and are getting more and more favorable comments from employing units.
It is time to mount winds to break through waves, and erect sails to bridge deep seas. Under more practical and aggressive spirits, we will bravely meet new challenges and work hard in order to build a comprehensive university with both teaching and researching functions.
NCUT¡¯s tomorrow will surely become more brilliant and splendid.
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