Chongqing Normal University(hereafter “CNU”), the third group qualified of granting Master’s degrees authorized by Academic Degree Commission of the State Council, started graduate education in 1986, which hasa history of 27 years to date. The Graduate School is primarily responsible for discipline construction of the whole university, postgraduate cultivation, postgraduate education and academic degree management, and for the planning, coordination, management and service of the graduate education.
CNU now has 17 first-level disciplines authorized to offer the master’s degree, 8 secondary subjects of the independent setting of directory, 11 first-level key disciplines of Chongqingalso called The Twelfth Five-year Plans, 8 types of Professional Master’s degree, and has the right to cultivate teachers of teachers training collegemasters and secondary-vocation school masters. The Graduate School now has 364 postgraduate tutors and 17 part-time doctoral supervisors. The cultivating disciplines for postgraduates include 11 major disciplines such as the science of law, economics, literature, pedagogy, among the others.
The graduate school always adheres to the quality of education as the core, innovation of scientific research as the leading factor, and reformof graduate students’ education teaching as the main line, promoting the development of the connotation of graduate education, improving the quality of personnel training, and cultivating innovative talents. This school has Chongqing graduate innovative education base, and in recent years, the quantity of the Chongqing municipal high quality courses, graduate education reform projects, and excellent master degree theses of graduate students has ranked among the top of Chongqing municipal colleges and universities, which has created a good platform for graduate innovation education and educational reform.
The Graduate School actively implements the work about the graduates’ education in ideology and politics, the Party construction of graduates, and management of graduate bursary, graduates’ academic and cultural activities, Graduate Student Union and the employment guide for graduates. The school puts students first, starts up high-end branded activities, which are integrated, interdisciplinary, open and large-scale. Besides, the Graduate School also implements activities such as Graduates’ Academic Activities Period, Graduate Forum, and the “Three-Help”; it also sets up Journal of Postgraduates, holds more than 10 featured activities each year, and organizes hundreds of content-rich academic lectures, which provides a wide space for service and education, cultivating innovative talents and improving the comprehensive quality of postgraduate students.
Regarding achieving the “upgrade” of connotation development of CNU as a mission, according to the unified deployment of the Party and administration, the Graduate School of CNU strengthens service consciousness and improves the level of management; focusing on Doctor Project Construction, it promotes the rapid development of discipline construction, fully carries out graduate educational and teaching reform, and improves the quality of graduate cultivation. The Graduate School of CNUsticks to one goal, follows two main lines, and adheres to “Three-Promoting”—study promoting idea updating, institution building promoting innovation in working, and scientific management promoting active service, which provides the solid foundation for the “upgrade” of connotation development of CNU, and makes further contributions to building a teaching and research-oriented normal university with distinct features, which ranks among the top in western China and has important influence nation-wide .
