Hefei University (HU), previously known as Hefei United University, is a full-time multidisciplinary institution of higher learning founded in 1980. With a broad range of disciplines in engineering, economics, management, liberal arts, natural sciences and pedagogies, it is especially strong in the first three. During its early years, the university played an important role in exploring Chinese Higher Education Reform by pioneering the educational mode of “moderate charge for tuition, no guarantee for employment, specialty setup in line with the need of the society, and practice of service outsourcing”.
Hefei University has a staff of 896, and among them 708 are full-time teachers with 53 professors and 237 associate professors. More than 72% of the teachers hold master degrees or doctoral degrees. In addition, there are 177 part-time teachers from home and abroad, and among them nearly 20 are resident foreign teachers ----two of whom were grantd “National Friendship Award” by the Chinese Government and nine of whom “Huangshan Friendship Award” by Anhui Province.
The university has an enrollment of over 14,000 full-time students, 96% of whom are undergrauates. And ther are 72 international students on campus. Now, the university consists of 19 academic departments with a total of 43 specialties with Bachelor’s Degree, including 5 specialties with national characteristics and 4 specialties implementing the Prominent Engineers Training Project.
Hefei University is an implementing carrier for the Prominent Engineers Training Project, a pilot institution for master degree special talent training program, a participant in the application-oriented education in collaboration between China and Germany and a model university for undergraduate studies in Anhui Province. In addition, it is a vice-chairman unit of the National Application-oriented Universities League and permanent chairman unit of the Anhui Application-oriented Universities League.
Hefei University persists in thoroughly carrying out the educational policies by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Government, complying with the developmental law of higher learning,sticking to the Scientifc Concept of Development, persevering in reform and opening-up.
Adhering to the orientation of “Regionalization, Application, and Internalization”, the philosophy of “ Cultivation-orientation, Moral Education First, as well as its motto of “Morality, Knowledge, Mind, Hand”, Hefei University commits to serving the regional economic and social development by means of improving the quality of education and talent cultivation, in particularly, strengthening students’s autonomous learning ability, sci-tech innovation ability, competence for social practice, and competitive power in job hunting.
In recent years, students of Hefei University have had many wins in the national or provincial competitions: a first prize in the National Undergraduate Creative Mechanical Design Contest, a fisrt prize in the “Challenge Cup” National Undergraduate Curricular Academic Science and Technology Works by Race for the Expo 2010 Shanghai , a first prize in the National Undergraduate Electronic Design Competition(NUEDC), a first prize in the “Bisheng Cup” National Undergraduate Creative Electrinic Design Contest, a first prize of the undergraduate segment and the Best Achievement in Practicability in Network Originality Competition (NOC), to name but a few.
In the National College Stidents Fencing Tournament, students of Hefei Univercity won in total 27 gold medals, 17 silver ones and 22 bronze ones in the previous seasons. The employment rate of HU graduates remains above 96%, among which more than 68% graduates work in Hefei, and over 80% in Anhui Province. And Many have become the technical and management backbones of their companies.
In 1984, Anhui Province and Niedersachen ( a state of Germany) came to an agreement to co-build up Hefei United University as a Province-State Cultural Cooperation and Exchage Project. For 2 decades and more, Hefei University has been expanding international cooperation and exchange. Having learneded a lot from the advanced educational philosophy of German University of Applied Sciences, Hefei University has found out a way of sustainable development for the application-oriented university in line with its own conditions, which has received favorable comments from the relevant authorities from the central to the provincial government. In 2009, the project A Study on the Application-oriented Talent Cultivation System of German Institute of higher learning and its Innovation and Practice took a second prize of the Sixth National Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award.
So far, Hefei University has established cooperative relationships with 37 universities in Germany, Korea, Japan, the United America, Italy, Spain, Australia, Thailand and so on. There are more than 1,400 students studying abroad, in such countries as Germany, Korea, Italy, and Spain. Anhui German Certre and Anhui Korea Certer are set up in Hefei University. Also, the College of International Education is established, and the Logistics Management Specialty cooperated with German is the first international cooperative program in Anhui Province approved by the Ministry of Education.
Hefei University has achieved remarkable success in the teaching reform, talent cultivation, scientific research, teaching staff construction, which accordingly upgrades the comprehensive quality, core competence and social status of the University. In 2011, the minimum score for admission to the liberal arts and science is 28 and 35 points higher respectively than the provincial one. Looking into the future, Hefei University will continue to stick to the Scientifc Concept of Development, further improve the quality of talent cultivation, and thus build a distinctive application-oriented institution of higher learning with high quality that people are satisfied with.
