Weinan Normal University (WNU) is located in Weinan city, a 40-minute drive from Xi'an, in eastern Shaanxi province. With a long history and rich culture, Weinan is home not only to the beautiful legends of Cangjie – creator of the Chinese characters - and Dukang, the wine-maker, but it is also the location of the famous Weihua Uprising. The land has always fostered outstanding figures, such as Chinese medical pioneer Sun Simiao, Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian, Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi, patriotic General Yang Hucheng, and Chinese revolutionists Liu Zhidan and Xi Zhongxun.
WNU offers undergraduate Bachelor's Degrees and it also cooperates with different colleges and universities to train/cultivate masters and doctoral candidates. Some prestigious and respected provincial leaders, academicians and well-known experts and scholars are invited as the president consultants. There are 1,198 staff members, including 879 full-time teachers. Thirty-five percent of the staff are professors and associate professors. More than 52 percent of the staff have earned Master's degrees and more than 23 percent have Doctoral degrees.
A group of influential Weihua Scholars and Academic Backbone Teachers are an integral part of the university's faculty. Among them are prominent experts who have earned special awards for outstanding contributions to the scientific progress, Ph.D. supervisors, government-supported experts, provincial "Three Five" talents, and provincial teaching masters. Weihua Scholars are leaders in discipline and academic research at the university, while Academic Backbone Teachers are the university's academic standard-bearers.
WNU possesses modern teaching and research equipment worth more than 100 million RMB and 1.72 million volumes in the library. The University consists of eight disciplines, including science, literature, engineering, history, management, education, economics and law. It includes 10 secondary colleges, 29 teaching departments and 48 majors. The college has an increasingly comprehensive disciplinary structure and features students from 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions. Currently, there are 16,216 full-time students in the university, which has a 867,700-square-meter campus.
The university puts a strong emphasis on the discipline construction. Currently, it offers numerous special courses at the national and provincial level. Among these are innovative experimental courses, bilingual teaching demonstration courses, experimental teaching demonstration centers, and provincial-level teaching teams. In addition, it offers research centers focused on the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Early Revolutionary Activities of the CPC in Shaanxi Province, Cooperative Military-Civilian Technological Development, Chinese Thought and Culture, Eastern Shaanxi History and Culture, Number Theory, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. It also features laboratories studying the Ecology of the Wei, Luo and Yellow Rivers and Digital Media Art. The University offers Technology Centers focused on Equipment Engineering, Optical Quantum Information Engineering, Composite Materials Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Additionally, it hosts the Shaanxi Institute of SME Management. Teaching and research faculty have undertaken or are undertaking projects funded by the National Social Science Fund, the National Natural Science Foundation, National Soft Science Research Projects, National Science Foundation Projects for Post-Doctoral Fellows, and numerous national, provincial and local projects. They have won the national and provincial awards for high-level teaching and scientific research, including the Award for Philosophy and Social Science Outstanding Achievement, Science and Technology Award, Science and Technology Progress Prize for Colleges and Universities by the Chinese Ministry of Education, or the other related ministries at the national and provincial level.
WNU has established a "Sister University" relationship with more than 20 universities and colleges in more than 10 countries and regions including Claremont Graduate University (USA), Northwestern University (USA), Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (New Zealand), Pai Chai University (Korea), Kinki University (Japan), Kaya University (Korea), University of Ballarat (Australia), Amur State University of Humanities and Pedagogy (Russia), and Minghsin University of Science and Technology (Taiwan). With the cooperation of Pai Chai University, the Pai Chai Training Center has been set up at WNU, which has given a number of students chances to study in Korea and Europe.
For a long time, especially since the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan", the teaching and research teams of the University has played a positive and important role in academic research, decision consultation, training highly qualified specialists, serving the economy and society, receiving approval and praise from all levels of the society. WNU has been granted titles including Excellent University in Arts Teaching in China, Excellent University in Training and Testing Mandarin Chinese in China, Model University in Standardization of Mandarin Chinese in China, Excellent University in Shaanxi, Advanced Institution in Shaanxi, Provincial Civilized Campus, Provincial Garden-like Campus, and Campus of Peace in Shaanxi, etc.
Standing at a new glorious historic point of departure, the leaders of WNU Party Committees and administrative authorities are determined to unite as a whole and serve as a guide for all staff and students, to adhere to the outlook of scientific development, to stress promotion of connotation, to live up to the school motto "Studying for Attaining Practical Use, Being Conciliatory but Not Accommodating", to carry forward the school spirit "Diligence is the Mother of Happiness" to strive for constructing a comprehensive teaching-research oriented university with the characteristics of teacher education!
