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Who We Are . . .

Shanxi Normal University is one of the five oldest universities in Shanxi Province, situated in the ancient city of Linfen—home of the legendary monarch King Yao, and one of the birthplaces of the Chinese race. In 1958 Shanxi Normal University began as a teacher training school, responsible for training teachers throughout the south of Shanxi. After the regulation of the higher education system in 1962, it became the only higher-level teacher training school in the province. In 1964, through collaboration with various departments of Shanxi University it officially became Shanxi Teachers College. In 1984, it upgraded to a university through the endorsement of the State Education Commission of China. The Shanxi Provincial government decided in 1999 to make the Shanxi Normal University Sports College and the Shanxi Vocational Teachers College part of Shanxi Normal University, thus strengthening the position of the university through the sharing of resources.

At present the university has three campuses covering an area of 780 hectares, with a total of 470000m² of buildings. The library stocks 1470000 books. Altogether there are twenty colleges belonging to the university, twenty-eight research institutes and centers, three public educational research departments and one provincial research academy. The university offers forty-seven different majors for undergraduate, and thirty-two current areas of study—a total of forty-one majors—for Master degree students. Four majors are offered to Doctorate students in association with the Chinese Academy of Science and other universities. There are five subjects that are emphasized at the provincial level and there are ten high standard laboratories for analytical testing, using state of the art technology.

There are nine major disciplines of study, namely literature, law, history, education, economics, management, science, engineering and agriculture. The university has 15000 full-time undergraduate students, 900 full-time Master degree students and seven Doctorate degree students and more than 20,000 mature age students.

At present, the university has an established educational system combining different aspects of education—teacher training and non-teacher training; academic education and skilled vocational education; training for future teachers, and for experienced teachers. Perseverance and development are our main theme, in our basic task of training qualified personnel, improving the standards of instruction, building up the main areas of study, and focusing on educational research. Ninety thousand students from all disciplines have already graduated from our university and entered the workforce in our country.

The academic staff at Shanxi Normal University are skilled educators with an array of rich teaching experiences. Our outstanding research and educators have had a definite influence in the world of academia both in China and abroad. In recent years, the number of theses accepted by SCI?? is one of the highest among normal universities nationwide.

The university publishes a number of periodicals, distributed both locally and overseas. These include the “Shanxi Normal University Paper”, “China Opera”, “Language Periodical” and “The English Weekly”.

As we enter the new millennium, the university is striving to develop into one of the most renowned Normal Universities in China, for its specialization in teachers’ education and other disciplines, as well as its local flavor. In 2004, Shanxi Normal University recruited students from seventeen different provinces in China.