Description?o Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL), under the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, originated from Central China University and has undergone multifarious changes. Central China University was founded in 1948 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yi. The former was the First Secretary of the Central China Bureau, under the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and the latter the Second Secretary of Central China Bureau and Director of the Preparatory Committee of the Central China University.
ZUEL consists of 9 schools, offering 29 majors, 33 master and 19 doctorate programs. Specifically, ZUEL is authorized to confer MBA and J.D. degrees and enroll international students at all levels, as well as students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. In addition, there are two postdoctoral mobile centers in ZUEL.
At present, there are 920 academic and 1,300 administrative staff personnel to meet the needs of the growing student population. There are approximately 15,490 full-time students, including postgraduate and post-doctoral, and 10,800 adult and part-time students. Among the faculty, there are 145 professors and 354 associate professors with 33 professors entitled to supervise doctoral students.
ZUEL covers more than 2,000 mu (about 133 hectares), with a combined floor space of over 500,000 square meters. The value of facilities for teaching and research adds up to 45,7480,000 RMB yuan. The university library houses 1,650,000 books covering a wealth of disciplines. As one of the earliest universities joining the campus network, ZUEL possesses the national and global information retrieval system and offers its students ready access to the cyber world. The university stadium was used as the major ceremonial site and competing field for the 4th National University Student Games in 1992. It was also used as the field for the national class-A football match in 1995.
In addition to its primary disciplines of economics, law and administration, ZUEL also offers courses in literature, philosophy and science, of which 14 study areas are accredited as key ones at the provincial and ministerial level. Furthermore, ZUEL accommodates a group of scholars with remarkable academic attainments and international and domestic influence in the academic world of economics and law. Among them, 28 professors and experts enjoy the State Council expert allowance, and an additional 21 have won the title "Young or Middle-aged Experts of Outstanding Achievement" awarded by the Hubei provincial government, and enjoy the provincial expert allowance.
In recent decades, ZUEL faculty has accomplished more than 280 key scientific research projects at national, provincial, and ministerial levels. Among these projects, there are 59 projects sponsored by the State Social Science Fund, 11 projects by the State Natural Science Fund and 77 projects by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China. Since 1979, the faculty has made over 20,000 research contributions, including 17,000 treatises, 1,500 textbooks and 400 research articles published abroad.
In the areas of academic exchange, ZUEL has developed a worldwide cooperative research and academic exchange relationship with dozens of countries and districts in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australia.
In the past 50 years, ZUEL has nurtured more than 170,000 students at diverse levels for its country. In the future, ZUEL, with the concerted efforts of the academic and administrative staff, aims at building itself into a first-class university of humanities and social sciences in the country. |
