The predecessor of Shaanxi Normal University is Shaanxi Provincial Teachers School which was founded in 1944. It was renamed as Xi’an Teachers College in 1954. In 1960 Xi’an Teachers College emerged with Shaanxi Teachers College into Shaanxi Normal University. In 1978, it became one of the key institutions of higher learning directly affiliated to Ministry of Education. For 60 years, under the guidance of the educators such as Liu Zeru, Li Mian, Guo Qi of the old generation, its staff has worked hard and striven for the prosperity of the university generation after generation. Up to now, SNNU has been built into an influential top comprehensive university, with complete disciplines and majors and with an integrated teaching system. SNNU has fostered near 130,000 graduates of all kinds for the nation, opening its enrolment to 31 provinces and districts all over the country. Besides, SNNU has begun to recruit postgraduate students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The current university Party Secretary is Prof. Jiang Xiu-le; University President is Prof. Fang Yu.
The university is located in Xi’an, well-known for its cultural history, covering an area of more than 2,700 mu. It has two Campuses including Yanta Campus and Chang’an Campus. The two Campuses play different roles in fostering of students. Built in 2000, Chang’an Campus took the task of fostering junior, senior and postgraduate students. And Yanta Campus with 60-year-history takes mainly the tasks of not only teaching the foundation subjects and common courses of freshmen and sophomores, but also fostering teachers, students of further education, trainees and foreign students. Yanta Campus is next to famous scenic resort of the Great Wild Goose Pagoda, a fine environment possible to nurture talents; Chang’an Campus, located in “Enterprise Garden of University Education” at Guodu County, enjoying a grand scale, advanced equipment and modern facilities. Ministry of Education granted the university a title of “Civilized Campus” for its beautiful environment, with a famous reputation “the charm is in SNNU” among the universities in the city.
The university contains 20 colleges and 2 foundation teaching departments, 62 majors, 10 doctoral mobile programs,6 postdoctoral centers of first rank discipline, 69 doctoral programs, 24 master centers of first rank discipline, 159 master programs, the authorized organization to issue diploma for educational masters and the masters of college teachers at work. Among the 12 authorized organizations with the rights of issuing diploma in our country, SNNU covers 11 authorized majors including philosophy，economics，laws，pedagogy，literature，history，science，engineering，administration，agriculture，and medicine. It also has three national key disciplines, one national key discipline on education, two excellent doctoral dissertations among 100 national doctoral dissertations, 2 national bases of fundamental learning and personnel cultivation,1 national key engineering laboratory, 1 State experimental teaching demonstration center,1 research base on human sciences under Ministry of Education， 1 sports sociology research base affiliated to State Sport General Administration, 3 key laboratory & engineering research centers affiliated to Ministry of Education, 6 key provincial laboratory and engineering research centers , 3 key provincial research bases on human sciences，5 provincial experimental teaching demonstration centers, 60 research centers of all lines. The university has College of Further Education, College o f Internet Education, College of Teaching Carders education, Vocational Education College of Higher Learning etc. Besides, there are also decades of academic societies and organizations such as Northwest Normal Teacher Training Center under Ministry of Education, Northwest Educational Administration training center under Ministry of Education, Basic Education Curriculum Research Center under Ministry of Education, Northwest comprehensive Book Information Center, Society of history of Tang Dynasty, Society of Chinese ancient capitals, etc.
The university has a faculty of 2,850, among whom there are 1421 with higher professional qualifications including 292 full professors, 452 associate professors and 194 doctoral supervisors, and over 68% of whom have degrees of MA and Ph.D. There are five national experts and five provincial experts with outstanding contribution respectively, one post of specially hired professor and one lecture professor under the Project of Changjiang Scholars Award, one national celebrated teacher, eleven provincial celebrated teachers, three candidates on first and second hierarchs under “National Project of Millions of Persons”, one candidate on national “New Century Project of Millions of Persons”, twelve candidates of “New Century Excellent Talents Supporting Project”, seven candidates of Awards and Subsidizing Project of outstanding young teachers, ten candidates of “Three-Five Personnel Cultivation Project of Shaanxi Province”, six State outstanding teachers, one candidate in national propaganda and culture system, one national teaching group and four provincial teaching groups. In recent years, the university actively adjusts its policy for personnel introduction, and as a result, almost one hundred of scholars well-known at home have been invited as part-time professors, among whom there are 10 members of the Chinese Academy of Science.
The students enrolled at university amount to more than 50,000, among whom there are 6,688 post- graduates and 15,017 undergraduates, nearly 40,000 students in Further Education College or Net-education College, and 325 foreign students.
For a long time, the university regards educational quality as the lifeline of development, so that it adopts the educational security system mainly on the basis of teaching assessment. The university attached great importance on teaching administration and reform; therefore it has gained remarkable achievements since 2000. These achievements include 5 national teaching achievements award, 33 provincial teaching achievements award, 6 “Face to 21Century Textbook”, 8 national excellent courses, 29 provincial excellent courses, 7 national characteristic majors, 11 provincial characteristic majors, 12 provincial brand-name majors, 1 national talent training zone of innovative experiment. From 2008, the university carried out “2+2” mode of talent cultivation with the characteristics of wide route, strong ability and high quality and actively explored “4+2” model of cooperative talent cultivation between the cities and countries to foster qualified teachers for basic education.
The university puts emphasis on and continuously strengthens the scientific research work. During “Tenth Five-year Plan”, the whole university undertakes 145 programs of scientific research including 28 national social science fund program, 32 programs under the State Educational Ministry, with 101 items awarded for their achievements, publishes 536 books or textbooks and issues 3600 papers among which 985 papers are of high quality, the top three prize winners of The third Chinese collegial human science research achievements, According to the statistic data, the number of the papers published by the university faculty was ranked first compared with other universities of Shaanxi province. 210 Science & Technology programs were undertook in the period of “Tenth Five-year Plan” among which 59 national science fund programs，35 awarded programs，18 programs were awarded by provincial or national institutes. 68 books were published and 3365 papers of which 1573 were high quality papers were published including 522 SCIE papers and 16 patents.
The university is “national cultural quality education base of University students” and “College counselor training and study base under Ministry of Education”. For many years, the university attached great importance to the overall quality of students’ education, vigorously promoted the school spirits of “to Morality stress, Knowledge accumulation” to construct high grade campus culture. It also actively promotes “Improvement plan of the quality of college students “to carry out a variety of campus cultural activities, social activities and the practice of public service activities and advocates that the high culture enters into campus. College students’ cultural festival of art, the cultural festival of science and technology, the overall quality of students contest, English corner are all included in the cultural activities. Students’ society on studying Marxist-Leninist theories has been visited and supervised by three provincial party committee secretaries.
The university was awarded the honorary title of “national advanced university of spiritual civilization” by the Central Committee of Civilization in 1999 and Communist Youth League School was awarded a central mission “the National advanced College Students’ collective social practice” in 2004.
The university library has a collection of books of 2.968 million copies, reaching the top compared with other universities in western China due to its advanced facilities, perfect functions and bulks of books. The libraries of the two campuses cover 50.9 thousand square kilometers. History & Civilization Museum, Paintings & Art Museum and the only National Women History &Culture Museum are all set up in the university. The university also publishes journals as “Shaanxi Normal University Journal”, “Contemporary Teachers’ Education”, “Series of Chinese History & Geography” , “Review on Social Science” , “Chinese Arts Education”, “Study of De Xiaoping Theory”, “Studies on Laboratories of Colleges & Universities” and so on. “Shaanxi Normal University Journal” enters Ministry “Outstanding Journals Project” among11 social science journals published by universities. The University Press edits and publishes 9 kinds of journals of basic education research, with their publication total price rank first compared with the same kind of journals. Four journals are the core of the national publications. And the Press stresses both social and economic results, joining the ranks of top ten among university presses.
The university actively carries out international cooperation and exchanges, and has built a relationship with 60 universities of a number of countries and districts including America, Britain, French, German, Japan, Australia, Canada, Korea, Vietnam and Hong Kong etc. fostering over 3,000 foreign students.
The university has its own affiliated high school, affiliated primary school and kindergarten. The affiliated high school is a key provincial middle school and affiliated primary school and kindergarten are provincial model schools. In recent years, the university jointly ran Jin Yuan International School and Jin Tai Si Lu Hua Cheng School with private enterprises in order to make full use of the educational resources of the university.
The university is one of the earliest universities which performed the logistical socialized reform; therefore, it exposed an advanced way of logistical reform with its own characteristics. This experience exerted extensive influence nationwide.
Facing the new century, SNNU tries to take the opportunity of Western Development, enhances its teaching quality all over, increases its level of scientific research and social service, and strives for running SNNU into a comprehensive, research-oriented university with the specialization in teacher training.
