The College of Humanities and Foreign Languages (CHFL) was formed in April, 2018, resulting from a merge of two colleges—College of Humanities and Social Sciences and College of Foreign Languages. Putting in the first place discipline construction, moral education and talent cultivation, education through practice, as well as improvement of educational quality, CHFL is committed to moving toward a college featuring high-level teaching staff and production of high-quality talents.
Presently, CHFL is composed of eight institutions of teaching and research—Department of Public Affairs, Department of Chinese Language and Culture, Department of Public Relations, Department of English, Department of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL), Institute of Philosophy, Art Education Centre, and Department of College English Teaching. It also contains university-level research institutions like Buddhism and Zhejiang Culture Research Centre of China Jiliang University (CJLU), School of Sinology of CJLU, as well as college-level research institutions like Research Centre of Chinese Culture, Institute of Public Standard Service, Institute of History and Culture of Metrology, Institute of History of Poetry of the Tang Dynasty, Research Centre of International Standardization and Languages, Research Centre of Sinology and Eastern and Western Cultures, and Research Centre of Cross-cultural International Business. In addition, CHFL is the location of the secretariat of the university branch of the Confucian Studies Association of Zhejiang Province.
Currently, CHFL provides a master’s program of the first-level discipline of philosophy, a professional master’s program of TCSOL, and a master’s program of public administration (MPA), with 24 postgraduates now reading for a master’s degree. It also provides 6 bachelor’s programs, respectively, of English, translation, TCSOL, public affairs administration, Chinese language and literature, and public relations, with 1255 full-time undergraduates reading for a bachelor’s degree.
CHFL boasts fairly good teaching staff. Of 122 staff members, there are 10 professors, 35 associate professors, and 36 teachers with a doctor’s degree.
CHFL’s research level is relatively high. In recent years, teachers in CHFL have headed 4 projects (including one key project and 3 general projects) supported by the National Social Science Fund, 65 projects funded by the Ministry of Education of China as well as by Zhejiang Province, and 83 department and bureau-level projects, with longitudinal research fund totaling more than 4.7 million RMB and horizontal research fund totaling more than 7.36 million RMB, and with 60 monographs and more than 300 research papers published.
CHFL boasts fairly good teaching and experimental facilities. There is a comprehensive centre of experimental teaching of liberal arts, which includes 5 labs or the like—simulation lab of public relations, training centre of public relations, lab of secretarial journalism, lab of digital humanities, and Mandarin proficiency test station of Language Commission of Zhejiang Province. There is also lab of simultaneous interpretation, lab of foreign languages, lab of translation, etc. The library of CHFL has a stock of over 28,000 books and has kept a regular subscription to more than 300 core journals of humanities and foreign languages.
CHFL has a relatively strong capacity for social service. It has established strategic or cultural cooperation successively with Administration of Culture, Radio, Television, Press and Publication of Gongshu District in Hangzhou, Wenzhou Institute of Measurement Technology, Qingdao Institute of Measurement Technology, Anhui Institute of Metrology, Fujian Metrology Institute, Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation, and Hubei Institute of Measurement and Testing Techonology. CFHL, by working together with Silk Gift of Wensli, Hangzhou, co., Ltd., has established Research Centre of Gift Culture, and by working together with Public Relation Association of Hangzhou, has established Institute of Public Relations, with the opening ceremony inaugurated by Li Daoyu, chairman of China International Public Relations Association and former Chinese ambassador to USA.
CHFL has been very active in promoting both domestic and international academic exchange and cooperation. In 2009, it hosted International Symposium on Yangming School, where nearly a hundred domestic and foreign scholars were present comparing notes. In the same year, it started its cooperation with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Work-Integrated Education (WIE), which has been funded in the past three years by the “Ten-Thousand Talents Project” of the Ministry of Education. So far, nearly a hundred students from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University have visited CJLU. In 2010, CHFL began to cooperate with The University of Western Australia on online exchange projects. In 2012, it started its cooperation with Soonchunhyang University of South Korea on a project of student exchange, and with University of Regina of Canada on Chinese Language and Culture Intensive Summer Program (CLCISP). In 2015, CHFL and CPC Committee of the county of Xinchang jointly organized Symposium on History of Poetry of the Tang Dynasty and Buddhist Culture in East Zhejiang. In 2016, CHFL, Chinese Confucian Academy, and Beijing Normal University jointly organized Symposium on Traditional Chinese Values and Contemporary Society in the county of Wuyi; present at the symposium were more than 50 experts and scholars who came from over 20 leading universities and research institutions, including Peking University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Nanjing University, Sun Yet-sen University. With a project launched in cooperation with School of Language and Culture of Auckland University of Technology (AUT) on Chinese students studying abroad on a short-term basis, CHFL signed in 2017 with AUT a dual-diploma project of 3+1. In 2017, CHFL, together with Hangzhou Municipal Government and China International Public Relations Association, jointly hosted the 8th West Lake Forum on Public Relations, with more than 300 distinguished experts and scholars present conducting an academic discussion on the topic of the role of public relations in building world-famous cities.
CHFL has been committed to promoting internationalization. It has signed agreements with Konkuk University of South Korea and University of Liège of Belgium on teacher and student exchange on a regular basis. By now, dozens of Chinese students have finished their study in South Korea and Belgium.
In order for students to develop a global perspective and learn about academic frontiers, CHFL invites on an irregular basis each year scholars from leading universities outside of Mainland China to come and give lectures. It has invited successively scholars from Harvard University, The University of North Carolina, Dongguk University of South Korea, University of Liège of Belgium, Soka University of Japan, and other universities.
CHFL has been active in promoting campus culture. Since 2009, it has successfully organized 9 activities of Chinese Culture Festival, centering respectively on the topics of “cultural inheritance”, “contemporary influence of Confucianism”, “the absolute Tao from ancient to modern times”, “poetic life”, “beauty in humanities”, “character building through propriety and music”, “virtue cultivation through humanities”, “civilization through humanities” and “seeking cultural roots”. Chinese Cultural festival has become one of the CJLU campus culture brands of the second batch, and has been selected by the Ministry of Education as one of the brands of “Respect for Outstanding Traditional Chinese Culture”. In recent years CHFL has organized various activities of distinctive features, including a public relation plan contest of Zhejiang Province, a “Wensli Cup” public relation plan contest of CJLU, a campus literature contest, a contest of etiquette in public relations of CJLU. It has also organized students in publication of magazines such as Tides of the Qiantang River, and Green Grass.
CHFL attaches great importance to developing students’ spirit of innovation and practical skills, sparing no effort to set up platforms for education through practice. In recent years students have made great achievements in various kinds of extracurricular activities of science and technology, including 3 third prizes in “Challenge Cup” National Undergraduate Curricular Academic Science and Technology Works Competition, 3 first prizes in “Challenge Cup” Zhejiang Undergraduate Curricular Academic Science and Technology Works Competition, 3 first prizes, 1 second prize and 6 third prizes in English competitions of Zhejiang Province, 1 second prize and 1 third prize in Public Administrational Case Contest of Chinese College Students, 1 best-case prize and 3 third prizes in China University Students PR Plan Contest, 1 first prize, 1 second prize and 1 third prize in Zhejiang College Students Career Planning and Entrepreneurship Competition.
CHFL attaches great importance to students’ employment and entrepreneurship, fully committed to linking students’ career planning to cultivation of their capacities for sustainable development. In 2016, it was awarded by CJLU the title of “advanced collective in students’ employment and entrepreneurship”. In recent three years, the employment rate for each of the six specialties has been above 95%.
