The Development History
1974: Established as Anhui Normal University, Huaibei
1978: Named as Huaibei Coal Industry Teachers College administered by the former Ministry of Coal Industry
1998: Operated in a co-construction system by both the central and Anhui municipal governments,

         but mainly administered by the latter

2003: Authorized to confer master degrees
2009: Enrolled as an institution with an approved program of being constructed into a unit authorized

         to confer doctoral degrees and was also approved to establish postdoctoral posts in Anhui Province

2010: Renamed as Huaibei Normal University

Operational Conditions
The university has two campuses – Xiangshan and Binhu and covers a total area of 200 hectares with 600,000 square meters of floor area. Up to now, the university has stored about 1.57 million paper books and 1.1 million electronic documents in its libraries. It now has 3 provincial level key laboratories, 2 provincial level key research centers of humanities and social sciences. It has been entitled “Garden Unit of Anhui”, “National Model Greening Unit”, “The 10th Civilization Unit of Anhui” and “1st Educational Civilization Unit of Anhui”.

Disciplines and Specialties
The coverage of discipline categories in HNU is as follows: law, arts, history, education, economics, management, art, science, engineering and agronomy. There are now 5 provincial level key disciplines, 5 provincial level disciplines approved for being constructed and authorized to confer doctoral degrees, 1 provincial level discipline with an approved major discipline-construction project. In the university, there are 75 undergraduate specialties, 5 national level characteristic specialties, 1 national level experimental site for comprehensive specialty reform, 1 national level key training base for teachers in special education, 9 provincial level characteristic specialties and 12 provincial level experimental sites for comprehensive specialty reform.

Faculty
Among all the teachers in HNU, 671 of them have got doctoral or master degrees and 524 have been conferred senior professional titles. There are now 2 academicians (concurrent post), 1 member of the “Hundred, Thousand, and Ten Thousand Leading Talent Project” in the “Special National Supporting Program”, 1 state-level candidate of the “New Century Hundred, Thousand, and Ten Thousand Talent Project”, 3 “Wanjiang Scholar” chair professors, 1 candidate of the “Excellent Young Teachers Program of MOE (Ministry of Education)”, 1 provincial outstanding professional and technical talent, 17 provincial level academic and technical leading teachers and candidates, 8 provincial outstanding university disciplinary talents, 27 provincial young and mid-aged university disciplinary leading teachers, 57 provincial young and middle-aged backbone university teachers, 14 State-level Excellent Teachers and 5.1 Labor Medal winners. In the university there are 14 teachers enjoying special government allowance.

Talent Cultivation
Now in the university there are 25547 undergraduate students and 673 postgraduate students. It has 1 national level school-enterprise cooperative practice base, 1 national level outside-school practice base, 6 provincial level teaching teams, 7 provincial level model teaching centers, 2 provincial level experimental areas for innovation of talent cultivation mode and 4 provincial level school-enterprise cooperative practice bases. The university has already undertaken 143 teaching research projects at provincial level or above and has won 45 teaching achievement prizes. The university passed the level assessment conducted by MOE with “Grade A” in 2007. It has been authorized to confer master degrees in 10 first level disciplines and 66 second level disciplines and also confer professional degrees in 3 areas.

Scientific Research
The university has 1 provincial level collaborative innovation center, 3 provincial level key laboratories, 2 provincial level key research centers for humanities and social sciences. There is 1 provincial level scientific and technological innovation team, 3 university innovation platform teams and 1 provincial level “115” industry innovation team. It has undertaken 132 state-level scientific research projects, 574 provincial level scientific research projects and has got 6240 academic papers published, among which 727 are published in the journals included in SCI, 580 in EI, 40 in ISTP and 652 in CSSCI. The university has also won 132 prizes at provincial level or above with 1 second national scientific and technological achievement prize, 1 second prize in natural science by MOE, 3 first provincial scientific and technological achievement prizes and 2 second and 3 third, 1 university excellent achievement prize in scientific research by MOE and 8 literature and art publication prizes in social sciences in Anhui. The university has also got 17 state-authorized invention patents. It has been listed in the 100 Chinese universities in NI, ranking 93 in the universities and 19 in teachers universities in mainland China. It also ranks at 137 in Chinese universities for ESI top papers.

Social Services
The University has been carrying out the school-enterprise collaboration strategies to strengthen the cooperation with both the locality and industries and offers services for the local economic and social development, and its transformation and upgrading. It also tries its best to give full play to the Economic and Social Development Research Center for North of Anhui and the Big Data Research Center for College and University Administration in Anhui as think tank to support the local economic and social development. By making use of Cooperative Innovation Center for Advanced Composites of Anhui and its advantageous specialties, the university provides services for development of the pillar industries of Huaibei City and has made obvious economic and social benefits in the following: fine chemicals, production and processing of agricultural and sideline products, new materials and machinery manufacturing.

Cultural Inheritance and Innovation
A promotion program of inheriting and innovating the excellent Chinese traditional culture has been under implementation, which is supported by the Literature Collecting and Researching Center of Anhui and the Research Center of Excellent Traditional Culture of Anhui. In order to promote the excellent culture of ancient classics, the university is striving to give full play to the journal Literature Research Bulletin of Anhui and the key journal Ancient Classics Research (a source journal of CSSCI, 2012-2013) jointly operated with Anhui University and the Ancient Classics Office of Anhui. Fruitful results have been achieved such as Nine Lectures on Culture in the North of Anhui and “An Exploring Trip along the Sui and Tang Dynasty Grand Canal”.

International Exchange and Cooperation
HNU has established interscholastic exchange and cooperation relationships with Middle Tennessee University, California State University Monterey Bay, Harding University, Roger Williams University, Western Oregon University, Castleton State University in the United States, University of Essex in the United Kingdom, La Trobe University in Australia, Nagasaki Junior College in Japan, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Utara Malaysia in Malaysia, Dhurakij Pundit University in Thailand, Taiwan Normal University, Shih Hsin University, Chung Hua University, Chaoyang University of Technology in Taiwan China. We have sent 9 groups of specialized teachers to the sister universities abroad or in Taiwan China as visiting scholars or for short-term training, and 7 groups of undergraduate and postgraduate students to participate in exchange and cooperation programs.

Social Reputation
The university has cultivated more than 80,000 talents of different specialties during the last 40 years. It has been recognized as “Advanced Unit of Talent Cultivation in Anhui”, “Advanced Collective of Employment in Anhui” and “Model Unit of University Graduate Employment in Anhui”. It has been entitled “National Advanced Party Organization at the Basic Level”, “Advanced Collective of Anhui” and “Advanced Collective in Scientific Research Management in Anhui”. The university has also been entitled 24 times as “National Advanced Unit in University Students’ Social Practice” and “Outstanding Service Team” by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Education, and the Central Committee of the Youth League.

Prospect Outlook
The university is striving for being authorized to confer doctoral degrees and is advancing to the goal – becoming a multi-disciplinary high-level normal university with distinct features and recognized influence within China and abroad.

(Last updated: December 31, 2016)

Campus Scenes

Office Building for the Schools

The cloister in Xingzhi Garden

Liberal Arts Building

The statue of Tao Xingzhi in Xingzhi Garden

Lecture Theater Building

Part of Siyuan Square (Happiness Source Rememberance Square)

Suiyuan (Profundity Garden)

No. 1 Sports Ground

The building of the School of Foreign Languages

The dropping water pool

A corner of Xingzhi Garden

A reading scene in Xingzhi Garden

A sculpture near the dropping water pool

Xingzhi Garden in Summer

The building of the School of Foreign Languages in winter

Campus in sunglow

A corner on Binhu Campus (the new campus)

(Acknowledgements are extended to the University News Center for providing most of the pictures.)