China University of Geosciences (CUG), with a graduate school established, is one of China’s first key universities listed as “Project 211” under the direct leadership of Chinese Ministry of Education. In 1952, Beijing College of Geology, CUG’s predecessor, was established by merging the Geology departments of Peking University, Tsinghua University, Tianjin University, and Tangshan Railway Institute. In 1975, the college was moved to Wuhan and renamed Wuhan College of Geology. In 1978, its graduate office at Beijing was founded. In 1986, the graduate school of Wuhan College of Geology was established with approval of Chinese Ministry of Education, and then was renamed Graduate School of CUG due to the founding of China University of Geosciences in November, 1987.
When Beijing College of Geology was founded in 1952, a graduate class was set up to receive the candidates pursuing master’s degree of Earth Sciences from the Geology departments of Peking University, Tsinghua University, Tianjin University, and Tangshan Railway Institute. In 13 years after the establishment of the college, its graduate education had developed rapidly and 321 graduate students had been conferred degree certificates before its interruption for historical reasons. Currently, CUG has an enrollment of 6312 master’s degree candidates and 1651 doctoral degree candidates.
CUG gives priority to improvement of supervisors’ quality and education conditions. The University has increased investment and taken effective measures in the construction of disciplines as well as infrastructure for graduate education. With 20-year continuous development, discipline construction in the University has registered substantial progress. Earth Sciences, the preponderant discipline of CUG, enjoys high reputation both at home and abroad. Thanks to the high level of disciplines, the number of degree programs and disciplines for graduate education has increased rapidly. Currently, in terms of the first level discipline, the University has 2 national key disciplines including 10 second-level disciplines and 16 provincial key disciplines, among which “Geological Resources and Geological Engineering” program and “Geology” program are ranked the first in China. The University also has 16 first-level doctoral programs and 34 first-level master’s programs, covering 8 categories of disciplines and 14 professional degree programs. ,
CUG has also developed a contingent of supervisors with high academic levels. Nowadays, the University has 10 academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 317 Ph.D. supervisors, 438 professors and 726 associate professors as well as 10 foreign academicians (5 from Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and 5 from Russian Academy of Engineering).
CUG has established 6 innovative research teams (3 approved by National Natural Science Foundation of China, and 3 by Chinese Ministry of Education) and 6 national teaching teams, in which 1 teacher is entitled “National Master Teacher” and 9 are “Master Teachers of Hubei Province”. In 2008, Professor Qiuming Cheng was awarded William Christian Krumbein Medal of the International Association for Mathematical Geology. He is the second Asian prize winner after Academician Pengda Zhao received the modal. It is the high-level disciplines and high-caliber supervisors that have laid solid foundation for the development of CUG graduate education.
Since the beginning of 1990s, the graduate school, with “enhancing the quality of talent cultivation” at the core, has embarked on a series of educational reforms and revisions of teaching programs to optimize discipline structures as well as curriculum systems.
The graduate school has improved management of academic affairs, carried on pedagogical innovation, and boosted internationalization for graduate education. The school has also established the system of admitting excellent master’s and doctoral candidates to be exempted from entrance exam as well as the system of cultivating innovative talents and the talents of extraordinary ability. Meanwhile, the school has implemented “Mechanism Reform for Graduate Education” and “Innovative Plan of Graduate Education” to encourage students’ academic research and innovation. In recent years, students’ dissertations have been improved substantially. Three theses were selected as “One Hundred Excellent Doctoral Dissertations in China” and sixteen were awarded nominations. Besides, 125 theses were selected as “Provincial Excellent Doctoral Dissertations” (Last update: 2015). Because of CUG’s top priority to students’ comprehensive quality training, many of them were respectively awarded the titles of “National Excellent Students” and the prizes of “National Contest of Science and Technology Invention”.
In addition, graduates from CUG play an important role in China’s economic development and scientific research. Some of them obtained national awards such as “National Labor Medal”, etc., and many of them become experts, academic leaders or leaders from government organizations, enterprises and public institutions.
After decades of unyielding efforts, CUG has developed into a multidisciplinary university, taking science and engineering as primary orientation with coordinated development of humanities, management, economics, law, education, arts, etc. Taking Earth Sciences as a preponderant discipline, the graduate school has been built into a multidisciplinary base with diverse education modes. The scale, structure, quality and profit of CUG graduate education have been on the trajectory of coordinated development. Focusing on the enhancement of education quality and aiming at the cultivation of innovative talents, we will continue to reform, keep up with the times and forge ahead in an innovative and enterprising spirit. Advocating the spirit of “working hard and living simply, looking for the truth and being practical”, we will strive to move toward a world-class university in Earth Sciences and usher in a new stage of CUG graduate education.
Last update: June, 2020
