On April 14, a delegation led by President Qiu Yong and Deputy Secretary of the University Party Committee of Deng Wei visited School of Social Sciences (SSS) and made investigation on the development of liberal arts, planning for the institute and introduction of talents.
Qiu Yong said in the symposium that, SSS has its unique advantages and characteristics in international relations, positive psychology, sociology and other disciplines and specialties, thus we hope it can play a leading role at the crucial moment of national transformation and university reform, enhance discipline construction and serve the nation better.
Qiu Yong put forward four suggestions on the construction of liberal arts and the further development of SSS: first of all, SSS should promote the development of liberal arts by prioritizing quality improvement and level enhancement on a limited scale, strengthen training on young teachers and tap their potentials, and do a good job in talent team building. Second, Tsinghua University should set clear goals, make accurate positioning and take appropriate initiatives to build itself a world-class university, and SSS and other schools should define and refine goals, striving to make Tsinghua University a "world-class and domestic leading university". Third, SSS should maintain its own characteristics and facilitate the intersection of economy, big data and statistics disciplines with other disciplines, to cultivate versatile talents. Fourth, SSS should combine development plans for liberal arts and optimize the disciplinary structure, making contributions to the development of humanities and social sciences of Tsinghua University.
Deng Wei said in the symposium that, whether the bottleneck in the development can be solved depends on the development quality of SSS. SSS should strive to improve the existing level of teaching staff and strengthen the introduction of international talents. Tsinghua University will also provide strong support to help SSS solve its own development problems step by step.
Peng Kaiping, Dean of SSS, made a report on the development history and planning as well as difficulties and problems in the symposium. He said that “over the years, SSS makes full use of the comprehensive advantages of Tsinghua University, takes the cultivation of high-end versatile talents who can improve ’social development, people's happiness and global governance’ as the positioning, and has made great achievements in promoting the integration of liberal arts and sciences, talent cultivation and international cooperation, contributing to the rapid improvement of academic status and international influences of relevant disciplines. In the future, SSS will strive to break through development bottlenecks, intensify efforts to introduce more talents, promote internationalization of high education, strengthen the platform construction and innovation in the fields of social science and experimental social sciences, and push forward the construction of top disciplines.”
Teacher representatives expressed their opinions actively in the symposium and put forward many views and suggestions from aspects of college development, educational objectives and discipline integration.
Liu Taoxiong, Secretary of the Party Committee of SSS, pointed out that the reason why Tsinghua University obtained rapid development of liberal arts in previous years was that a large number of outstanding scholars who returned home from studying abroad came up with new study methods that combined statistics, metrology and social science, greatly promoting the development of social science in Tsinghua University. Nowadays as social science has been widely influenced by big data and artificial intelligence, we should reinforce exchanges and cooperation between social sciences and other disciplines for interdisciplinary integration, and strive to achieve overtaking and leapfrog development.
Yan Xuetong, Dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations (IMIR), said in the symposium that the goal of IMIR was to continuously improve its status and influence in the international community, help the formulation of national policies and even fuel global development, cultivate first-class talents with international visions. The development of IMIR would be of great significance to facilitating the progress of internationalization.
Tang Ke, Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Economics, said the reform of personnel system in Tsinghua University greatly improved the attractiveness to young people and mobilize the enthusiasm of young teachers.
Leadership members and more than 10 teacher representatives of SSS attended the symposium. Heads from Office of the Party Committee, School Council, Development Planning Office, Academic Affairs Office, Foundation, Think Tank Center, Department of Liberal Arts, School of Graduate, Research Institute, Department of Personnel, Department of Assets and other departments attended the investigation.
