On 11 November, the 2016 Member Representative Conference of Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education and Academic Symposium was held in Xi’an. Attenders included academician Zhao Qinping, president of the Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education and former vice-director of the Ministry of Education, Li Jun, director of the Department of Postgraduate Education and Wang Shuguo, president of Xi’an Jiaotong University. Theme of this conference was “strengthening the quality of graduate education through reform, innovation and characteristic development”. During the conference, teams and individuals were awarded for their achievements in graduate education by the Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education. The team from Graduate School in XMU declared their achievement in “Following the Law of Educating Talents and Regulating the Management of Educating Process” to the society and received second award. Bao Shuimei, a doctoral student from Xiamen Academy of Educational Science, had her doctoral dissertation be rated as first-class (supervisor: Wang Hongcai). Professor Tao Tao, executive dean of Graduate School received the contribution award for his work.
217 achievements declared to the Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education nationwide. In the end, 41 achievements were awarded with 9 first awards after going through various processes, like formal examination, online judgment by experts, oral defense, online publication and review and approval.
Since 2012, the Graduate School has been adhering to the philosophy of “following the law of educating talents and regulating the management of educating process”, deepening the reform of graduate education modes by “Three Connections and Three Integration”--connecting the training of postgraduates and doctoral students, connecting school systems of postgraduates and doctoral students, connecting domestic and international education, integrating training process and scientific research, integrating course teaching and scientific research training and integrating in-class learning with after-class innovation and entrepreneurship. All these explorations and experiments are aimed at improving the quality of graduate education. It is a successful practice in reforming domestic graduate educational mechanism and system, greatly improving the quality of graduate students, especially of doctoral students in XMU. It has been highly recognized by the Ministry of Education, other universities and mainstream media for its promotional value as a classical example.
The award was set up by the Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education in 2014. Evaluated every two years, the award is aimed at rewarding teams and individuals who have made significant achievements in exploring new theories and teaching practices in graduate education. It is the top award in this field, being awarded is a breakthrough for XMU.
In order to inspire innovation capacities of doctoral students in related disciplines, to encourage students to create high-quality research results, to improve their research ability and to promote the building of related disciplines, the Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education carried out the evaluation of outstanding doctoral dissertations. The fifth term of evaluation rated 3 outstanding dissertations.
In order to motivate society members and staff, to improve the quality and level of their work and to promote the healthy and prosperous development of the society, it set up the contribution award in 2016 to honor 15 people for their outstanding achievements.
In addition, professor Tao gave a speech on “practice and exploration of XMU on graduate education internationalization” on parallel forum of the annual meeting on invitation. In 10 November, he gave a speech on “development and reform of graduate education against the background of building top-class universities with top-class disciplines” on the centre forum of the second term of individual membership conference.
