On the afternoon of March 15, 2018, XMU held a work conference on degree and graduate education for this semester. Prof. Jiang Yunbao, Executive Vice Dean of the Graduate School, presided over the conference. Attendees included XMU Vice President Wu Daguang and all colleges and institutes’ vice deans in charge of graduate education and secretaries for graduate academic affairs.
Prof. Jiang stated that the University was currently in a crucial stage of the “Double First-Class” Development Initiative and that the Graduate School should introduce new ideas, integrate more closely into the new era, align with the first-rate standards, and strive to achieve quality enhancement. He highlighted the University’s efforts to instill virtues and cultivate talent and called on all academic units and graduate student supervisors to strengthen their sense of mission and responsibility. Stressing that strength comes from teamwork, he expressed his hopes that all colleges and institutes would continue to lend support to Graduate School’s work in order to elevate the University’s degree and graduate education to a new height.
Prof. Fang Ying, Director of the Graduate School’s Training and Management Office, made a presentation on graduate training and management work. He gave a summary of the Graduate School’s work in 2017 and a briefing on the pilot program at the University for the comprehensive reforms of doctoral education. He stressed that doctoral education should always be focused on instilling virtues and nurturing talent and aimed at enhancing quality and meeting service needs. He said that the reforms would start with admissions and assessments, focus on the curriculum, and cover resource allocation and other supporting mechanisms, with a view to achieving breakthroughs in the integration of different disciplines. Finally, he announced the work arrangements for the new semester and called for meticulous efforts in preparing for the upcoming 4th China University Students’ “Internet Plus” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, which will be hosted by XMU.
Fan Lijuan, Deputy Director of the Graduate School’s Training and Management Office, made a presentation on degree and disciplinary development work. She reviewed the main work in 2017 in terms of degree program establishment, supervisor administration, degree conferment and quality monitoring, and institutional development. Afterwards, she outlined major work tasks for this semester. She called on all academic units to assess their compliance with the relevant standards and prepare self-evaluation reports in accordance with the requirements of educational authorities, to achieve continuous improvement in degree programs as part of the “Double First-Class” Development Initiative, to intensify quality supervision for degree theses and dissertations by subjecting to stringent originality checks. Ms. Fan also briefed the attendees on the selection of new doctoral supervisors for 2018 and the doctoral student recruitment quota given by educational authorities.
XMU Vice President Wu Daguang elaborated on the priorities of the graduate education work for 2018. He called on all academic units to give high priority to the assessment of degree programs and make meticulous preparations to ensure the completion of the assessment work in compliance with high quality standards. He pointed out that in 2017, XMU was designated as one of the 14 pilot universities (C9+5), including Peking and Tsinghua Universities, for comprehensive reforms of doctoral education, making it imperative to press ahead the reforms aimed at enhancing doctoral students’ innovation capabilities and doctoral education quality. He stressed the need to further improve mechanisms and systems and devote greater resources to key talent plans, high-importance research projects and interdisciplinary programs while ensuring adequate allocation of resources to fundamental work. He also emphasized the importance of consolidating the outcomes of the reform of linking up bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs, which was launched in 2014 in a bid to achieve a continuous improvement of graduate education at the University.
