Friends from Celaya University: their wonderful moments at SCBC
It is such a delight to have friends coming from afar. As an airplane that had taken off on the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean to China landed steadily at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on November 25, Gabriela Gonzales and four students from Celaya University, Mexico embarked on their journey of experiencing Chinese culture at South China Business College.
Rally held to drum up energy for 2020 Campaign for Quality Education &Teaching
On the afternoon of November 28, faculty members, counselors and heads of schools and departments were gathered at Lecture Hall C201 and Classrooms D201, D202 in a kick-off rally to call for full efforts to improve the quality of education and teaching. Executive Wang Hua, General Suprevisor Gu Yeli, CPC Secretary and Vice President Li Dong, Vice President He Aibing, Vice President Yang Yongqiang, Vice President Wang Xinjie, and CPC Deputy Secretary Fu Hongxin attended the occasion, which was presided by Vice President Zhao Chen.
According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China regarding the reform of undergraduate education and the creation of first-class undergraduate courses, SCBC has decided to launch the Campaign for Quality Education &Teaching in 2020. Wang Hua and Gu Yeli delivered speeches successively to motivate faculty and staff members.
Wang pointed out the necessity and urgency of reforming undergraduate education, citing the guidelines from the CPC central committee, the changes of economic and social conditions, and the latest developments of science and technology. Undergraduate education is of utmost importance in the new era of technology. This has been a global consensus for many years, as seen in many related reports, such as America’s Reinventing Undergraduate Education (1998) and Undergraduate Education in USA (2001), and Britain’s Higher Education and Research White Paper (2016), and in the educational philosophies of world-renowned universities like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. “There will be no first-rate university without first-rate undergraduate education,” he said. China must take actions to reform its undergraduate education and improve the quality of teaching, without which the call for building first-rate universities would be just empty talk.
Wang further pointed out that SCBC should spare no efforts to promote the quality of its education and teaching. Specifically, we should emphasize more on cultivating ability through real-life situations than imparting knowledge for out-of-touch scenarios; and we should have focuses in building undergraduate programs and look to new theories to understand new models of enterprises and emerging industries. Therefore, we have to reshape the makings of academic programs into ones that orient towards comprehensive education that puts science education, liberal arts education, and specialty learning on equal footing, and that integrates education and teaching with advanced technology.
“We went to college because we wanted to have our dreams come true, and we have chosen to be university teachers so that we could help college students weave their own dreams,” said Wang. He required all faculty members to not only talk the talk by saying that student-centered education is the way, but also walk the walk by taking actions to help students to learn and grow, get their feedbacks on our work, and fix the problems they spot. He called on them to work shoulder to shoulder in the concerted effort of reform to improve the quality of education and teaching so as to ensure a brighter future for South China Business College.
Gu Yeli also delivered a speech. He pointed out in his speech that all faculty members should study and implement the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education regarding the reform of undergraduate education and the empowerment of colleges and universities to cultivate students into high level professionals. We should keep in mind that quality is the key and new measures should be taken to build and reinforce quality education as well as SCBC’s reputation as an undergraduate college.
We should keep up with the times. Undergraduate colleges and unversities must adapt themselves to this age of rapid transformation. The new situations leave no room for laziness and passivity on the part of college students who have been idling away their time in class on social networks or mobile gaming, or simply, sleeping, and according to Gu, this is exactly where changes must happen. We should have a revolution in the classroom that will force changes in the way we put together courses and hence improvement in the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
Gu argued that to give good lessons, teachers should have love and passion, for their profession, for their students, and for the art of teaching itself. Moreover, they should be strict with students in class and keep them busy with learning. The starting point of dedicated teachers who can inspire students is always love, love that wells out of a sense of responsibility for students’ growth. He hoped that significant progress could be seen after one year of hard work, in terms of the general academic atmosphere, the pedagogical methods, and the student’s learning habits, so that the dynamic of SCBC’s quality culture could be built up to a higher level.
Gu also suggested that all faculty members should undertake a series of tasks after the rally. First, study the related guidelines, particularly those regarding the improvement of quality teaching issued by the Ministry of Education. Second, participate in discussions about how to reform the current courses and ignite revolution in class. Third, inquire into what teachers and students want and need and learn from the good practices of other colleges and universities. He expected that all teachers should devote themselves to the job, making scientific plans for every class according to students’ wants and needs. We also have the “last-mile” problem if we want our undergraduate education to deliver, and classroom revolution is the way to solve it.
The kick-off rally marks the official beginning of the 2020 Campaign for Quality Education &Teaching at South China Business College.