Academician Tang Tao, President of Nanfang College, Guangzhou, accepted the interview from South Daily and elaborated on the ideas and measures of the college to comprehensively promote high-quality development and build a first-class applied university with distinctive Chinese characteristics. The report was published as a full-page feature on June 25 with the full text forwarded below.
Slowly ascending a gentle slope, Nanfang College, Guangzhou nestles among rolling green hills, with its library backing up against a mountain, surrounded by tranquility. It is a young and comprehensive applied-college approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2006.
The college turned 18 on April 12th, marking a new chapter in its development. Tang Tao, a renowned mathematician and an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has just taken the helm as the college's President. He has served as the Vice President for research at Southern University of Science and Technology, and the President of Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, where he has pioneered cultivation to research-oriented talents and led international cooperative education.
What kind of “chemical reaction” will be sparked between such an experienced “academician president” and a college that focuses on cultivating applied talents?
“Distinctive missions are specifically designed for research universities, joint universities and applied universities”, said President Tang Tao. By raising a question: what contribution can an applied-university make in the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and even the high-quality development of the country? President Tang Tao joined NCG with a strong sense of curiosity and responsibility.
Commensurate to his yearn for scientific research, President Tang Tao has been basically prepared for NCG’s development blueprint: “It is necessary to be unique, to fill the gap in national development.”
NCG has formed a discipline system with management, literature and engineering as the main subjects while balancing economics, medicine and art after 18 years of development. There are 4 state-level and 6 provincial-level first-class undergraduate majors, accompanied by 2 provincial-level key disciplines in the campus. Clear as the next development goal: striving to build a first-class and high-level applied-university with distinctive Chinese characteristics.
As application presents a key link when transforming research theories into real productive forces, President Tang Tao states that the training of applied talents is the most important positioning and manifestation of NCG’s capability.
He also pointed that applied talents are those who crucially participate in and promote the development of national high-end manufacturing and modern service industries. In terms of society, the application of good technology effectively improves people's well-being. For example, behind the high-speed rail and air conditioning that make the public’s life convenient and comfortable, there are batches of knowledgeable and high-level engineers pushing and endeavoring.
“Our market needs practical talents. While some work to design the airplanes, there must be our roles to build them. I think we are still short of skilled engineers with sophisticated technology and modern knowledge, who are the key members to accelerate moving manufacturing upmarket”, said President Tang Tao. He noted that applied universities should strive to fill the gap in this link, as only when a theory put into place could it become good enough to make a difference.
As a mathematician, Tang Tao once contributed to the research of high-precision and self-adaptive computing methods. He has always admired Fourier, the famous French mathematician who brought up the significant “Fourier transform” theory two centuries ago. Being the “originator” of today's Internet and a number of intelligent technologies, the theory manages to convert signals and images into numbers, establishing the basis of networks for image transmission, music storage, face recognition and other functions.
“While the Fourier transform has been around for more than 200 years, it started genuinely benefiting humanity in 1965, after developed into an algorithm and applied.” Tang Tao looked exuberant when referring to mathematics, a field he familiar with , “There’s no possibility for the Internet Era to come, if theories are just simply worshiped rather than applied.”
Tang Tao devoutly believes NCG has a lot to offer as an applied-university. Its mission is to, aiming at social needs, insist on cultivating groups of high-quality, versatile applied-talents with solid professional foundation, strong practical capability and aspiration to innovate, transforming theories in scientific research into practical forces to benefit multiple fields, so as to promote social development and improve people's well-being.
He half-jokingly describes doing research as an “eye candy” that can only be appreciated, while application works to authentically benefit all sentient beings pragmatically improve social life.
“What I hope for the students trained by NCG is to make them able to showcase a higher level and better result in this aspiration”, said Tang Tao.
Teaching with Distinctive Characteristics
Focus on Key Sectors to Build Superior Disciplines
In terms of training applied-talents, how shall NCG form its distinctive characteristics and become a first-class applied-university in China among the large number of colleges in Guangdong Province, and even the whole country?
One is to apply industrial needs into courses teaching. Aiming at the targets of the Greater Bay Area’s industrial development, NCG will continue to deepen school-enterprise cooperation, jointly train high-quality talents that meet the needs of enterprises and serve local economic development, introduced by Tang.
On the other hand, Tang Tao attaches particular importance to teaching. “It’s necessary to teaching meaningfully,” said Tang.
In terms of discipline construction, Tang Tao, who studied mathematics, keenly captures the “wind blowing” for people to “fly”. “This is the era of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, when the modes of talent training must keep pace with the times”, said Tang.
Tang has now formed a crystal clear direction for NCG, after three months of investigate and knowing: to integrate data science and artificial intelligence into the school discipline design, especially engineering and business mixed with these high-end technologies, and medical technology which the society now lacks.
This strategy is vital for NCG to flourish superior disciplines in the three key sectors, namely the “new medical science”, “new engineering” and “new liberal arts”, allowing talent training not only meets the needs of society, but also drives industrial innovation and development.
With the arrival of the aging society, NCG has set up related majors seeing to health care and nursing following the needs of the times, when the future of health care industry can be promising. Tang Tao illustrates by examples that cultivating talents in intelligent health is a good direction to achieve this goal in a tasteful and high-end way.
To achieve this brand new goal, Tang Tao preliminary attached his focus on teacher training, as he believed only through developing innovative good courses could teaching injected with distinctive characteristics, in turn improving the school’s capacity.
President Tang Tao, in high spirits, set foot on his journey.
Last month, Tang traveled across the ocean to the other side of the world - the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, and had in-depth exchanges with the school’s Dean, associate Dean, curriculum director, data science and artificial intelligence related professors, to discuss the implementation of specific teacher training programs.
NCG will set off a teacher refresher program in the near future, sending 5 to 10 teachers to Wharton each year ranging from a month to a semester to help enhance their teaching skills. The project is now planned piloted in business major and to be extended to other disciplines as appropriate.
Promotion of teachers presents a cornerstone of discipline construction. The current existing faculty members of NCG are mainly from China’s top-tier universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, Tongji University, Wuhan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and others. Also there are teachers from overseas world-renowned colleges like Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Northwestern University, University College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, University of Hong Kong, rendering students high-quality academic resources, advanced teaching methods and a broad vision.
Tang Tao revealed that in the future, NCG will further introduce talents such as doctoral teachers and national famous teachers to the campus, plan to jointly carry out master's and doctoral training projects with world-renowned universities to provide scholarships for participated teachers and students.
He behaves confident with this task: “A college President that fails to introduce and cultivate talents shall never be seen as capable.”
Student-centered: Promoting liberal arts education to develop an international perspective.
Liberal art education is consistently Tang Tao’s philosophy for education.
He has previously served for many years as President of Beijing Normal University - Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, which features liberal arts education. Now he has brought the same pursuit to NCG to explore a combination of “liberal arts education + applied talent training”.
Liberal arts education refers to a kind that cultivates students’ holistic personality, stressing on humanistic literacy, aesthetic and artistic inner quality, natural science and technology literacy, practical ability and etc. through the provision of general courses, encouraging students to fully develop their personalities and become knowledgeable.
“The vision for liberal arts education is also applicable in applied-universities that emphasize professional learning practices.” Tang Tao states that one of NCG’s outstanding characteristics is “student-centered”. Under the school’s guidance, students shall be equipped with abilities to think, communicate, practice and innovate so as to form their core competitiveness and have embrace a brighter future, in addition to the study of professional knowledge. The inclusion of liberal arts education will not only help students improve their abilities to conduct critical thinking and independent learning but also their aesthetic tastes, in turn broadening their horizons, and register themselves a more abundant and splendid future.
Tang plans to set up a school of liberal arts in NCG, offering diversified courses such as the history of science, psychology, mathematics and applications and art appreciation open for all students in campus.
Based on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, it is also NCG’s crucial deployment to cultivate students’ international vision.
Few days before the interview Tang Tao visited and signed cooperation agreements with the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, with whom planning to carry out substantive cooperation and relevant reputed British universities such as the University of Leeds and Durham University, injecting fresh vitality into the college talent training target.
To promote international cooperation and introduce high-quality education resources, NCG has also set up an international school on campus and launched training programs with universities in Ireland, the United States and other countries to encourage teachers and students to go overseas for exchange and study.
Tang Tao pointed out that although still small is the number of students participating, the school will continue to select and launch superior cooperation projects, striving to allow more students to participate in “2+2” or “3+1” international exchange programs.
“Although now merely 100 students a year could manage to study abroad, I hope the figure will expand to to 500 or even 800 in the future.” Tang is enthusiastic about the plan. “It is good for students' lifelong development being in line with international standards and carry an open horizon.”
Tang also values the influence of campus environment on people. He believes that learning in a good environment subtly lifts up students' aesthetic perception, which concerns their life happiness.
In Tang Tao’s plan on “campus beauty”, NCG shall present an entirely fresh image next summer when the Phoenix flowers blossom: a brand new library set up to enhance learning comfort with abundant activity spaces such as seminar rooms, cafe and music rooms; the road surface on the central axis clear and clean, with dense green trees on both sides and leisure benches added to strengthen the interaction between people and the nature; Several newly set special “instagrammable” places provided to give students a souvenir of graduation...
Reaching 60, Tang Tao, a scholar on university management who has been deeply engaged in many fields of education, started a cause for a unique school with a pure mind that is people-oriented. The school will go hand in hand with the teachers and students to chase for a better future.
Cases
Cultivate E-commerce and Logistics Management Talents Together with Enterprises
In order to cultivate applied-talents that truly meet the needs of the market, NCG works with enterprises to carry out all-round cooperation in the education, training and talent development, promote applying industrial needs into courses teaching to achieve common development. One of the most representative cases is the school-enterprise cooperation model established by the NCG with JD.
In 2012, He Juhua, a student of NCG’s Business School had his internship at JD, after which joined successfully into the company. He worked with steadfast diligence and practiced in multiple departments such as the primary express stations, delivery management and distribution center. Now more than ten years later, he has become the personnel in charge of JD’s Department on Express Division - (Guangdong Province) picking and shipping operation, transforming from the grassroots to the management position.
NCG introduced that the school and JD have cooperated to establish programs including the “school-enterprise joint laboratory” and the “JD Experimental class”. The enterprise side shares practical experience with the students, linking talent cultivation in line with the industrial development.
With years of deepening school-enterprise cooperation, the two sides have worked together to build a supply chain demonstration base for integrating production with education, namely the School of JD E-commerce Modern Industry, which applies the leading practical experience into e-commerce, logistics management and other majors of the Business School to promote students’ practical participation, the school’s curriculum development, teaching and research, helping students transit smoothly from theoretical study to social practice.
In the future, NCG and JD will continue to leverage respective strengths and combine resources, to jointly train talents for e-commerce and logistics management, contributing to the construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Actively Carry out International Projects to Broaden Students' Horizons
“I used to know Britain only from books and movies. After visiting the country, I gained a deeper understanding to it and made many friends from all over the world”, expressed an NCG student who participated in the visiting study program to University College London last year.
All along, NCG has been adhering to an open attitude and actively carrying out international education cooperation. At present the school has established strategic partnerships with a number of foreign first-class universities and research institutions, covering 17 countries and regions around the world, furthering the depth and width of NCG’s international development.
The two NCG’s international programs approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education, namely the “Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools” and the “Sino-American CHEPD 1+2+1 Program”, are the crystal clear sources of NCG’s international education. They have successfully enrolled two batches of students totaling 163, with the training quality improved significantly year by year, enriching students’ learning and growth.
NCG has also set up a wide range of international training platforms to engage teachers and students into international exchanges. Relying on NCG’s “Overseas Study Service Center”, the university has launched multiple programs including the Sino-foreign joint training, short-term study, winter and summer vacation study tours and internship programs, covering continuing education, undergraduate exchange, master’s study and other levels, providing more opportunities on international exchange for teachers and students.
Teams of Teachers and Students Developed and Produced Infantry Robots and Won National Awards
On December 19, 2023, at China’s “2023 National College Student Robot Science and Technology Innovation Exchange Camp and Robot Competition” co-sponsored by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the infantry robot project worked by NCG’s students Rao Ruifeng, Li Tianle, Zhu Zikun, Li Jiayao and Pan Jingyi won a national second prize under the guidance by He Weihong, an NCG teacher from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“Participating in this competition is an important milestone in my growth”, said Li Tianle, a member of the team. He noted that the team had devoted one year to building the infantry robot and eventually managed to perform well in technical challenges and innovative design. In the preparation process, the team had better transformed the classroom theoretical knowledge into practical results under the teacher’s guidance.
NCG believes that this competition has demonstrated the school’s technological power, showcasing to the society the teachers and students’ team spirit and innovation ability and was a vivid practice of NCG’s focus in application-orientation and cultivation to students’ practical operation ability.
Data about NCG
NCG now has 11 faculties and 45 undergraduate majors.
Approved as a Construction Unit for master's degree by Guangdong Province in 2021; Become one of the first to be approved as a Joint Graduate Training Unit for full-time professional master’s degree with Guangzhou University in 2022;
2022-2024: Has ranked second in China and first in Guangdong Province among national comprehensive private universities listed by “iResearch” Alumni Association for three consecutive years;
Has 4 national first-class undergraduate major construction points, 6 provincial first-class undergraduate major construction points, 1 national first-class undergraduate course, 21 provincial first-class undergraduate course, and 2 provincial key disciplines;
By May 2024, NCG has undertaken 4 national Social Science fund projects, 2 National Nature Science fund projects, and 4 humanities and social science projects approved by Chinese Ministry of Education;
Won 1 second prize in the National College Teachers' Teaching Innovation Competition; 1 special prize, 4 second prizes and 1 third prize in the Provincial College Teachers' Teaching Innovation Competition; Won the Typical Experience Group Award of Employment and Entrepreneurship for Graduates in Guangdong Province; Won the national second prize at the sixth and seventh China International "Internet +" College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.
