The College of Fine Arts of Chongqing Normal University currently offers 7 undergraduate programs, including environmental design, visual communication design, apparel and costume design, apparel engineering design, product design, fine arts (teacher-training) and painting, among which product design (jewelry design) is a jointly run program.
The College of Fine Arts is the only secondary college authorized to offer master programs of two general disciplines – fine arts and design science among universities in Chongqing. Presently, it is authorized to confer master’s degree in two general disciplines – fine arts and design science, including fine arts program for masters (art design), pedagogy program for masters (discipline art), and two part-time programs - fine arts programs for college teachers and for vocational teachers. It has formed a multi-level integrated art talent cultivation system in which both undergraduate and master programs (full-time and part-time) are offered. The distinctive specialties, clear development positioning, rationalspecialty configuration and talent cultivation quality have made the College well-reputed and attractive in Sichuan, Chongqing and even in the western region.
Currently, the College has 96 staff members, including 81 full-time teachers who undertook undergraduate teaching in 2017 (14 master supervisors) and account for 84.4% of all teachers. Full-time teachers are sourced extensively, and most are art graduates from special art colleges and famous institutions included in the Project 211 and Project 985 of China or from renowned foreign universities, being equipped with high professional qualification and teaching capabilities. Among the teachers, there are 10 professors, 20 associate professors, 8 doctors and 14 master supervisors, forming a well-structured faculty for stable development. Most backbone teachers in the teaching staff have study experience in Europe and America, holding academic degrees of top specialized colleges or key universities in China. Based on their high academic teaching and scientific research capacity, the College has established a multidisciplinary teaching and research platform centered on the general discipline of fine arts.
Following the schooling concepts of “liberal arts, academics, creativity, sunshine and beauty”, the College takes the Western Development as an important strategic pivot, its location at the junction of “the Belt and Road” and the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the support, the traditional culture and national culture in the southwest region as the foundation for development of specialties. Based on its normal education characteristics and multidisciplinary advantages as a key university in Chongqing Municipality, plus the geographically advantageous sharing of art resources in Chongqing University Town, the College has well-coordinated development of undergraduate and master education, through which students may achieve solid academic foundation, high cultural accomplishments and good aesthetic appreciation capacity to serve the economic, cultural and artistic development of the western region.
To this end, the College has gradually formed specialties of fine arts and design based on studies, inheritance and innovation relating to ethnic minorities, folk arts, and regional traditional culture and arts in the southwest region. Such specialties include painting reflecting the traditional Bayu culture and contemporary urban life, environmental design characterized by mountain city and rural landscape reconstruction design, costume design in the context of economy and culture in Chongqing Municipality, and special arts education with characteristics of general disciplines in normal universities.
Besides, the College is working to form a teaching and management team of high teaching and research capabilities, high-level expertise and good professional quality by improving the teaching team construction, with emphasis placed on cultivation of specialty leaders and construction of teaching teams by classification. It will also continue reform in the specialty structure and talent cultivation programs following the integrated thinking of “specialty – profession – trade - industry”, so as to improve the reasonableness of specialty configuration and social adaptability of talents.
The College will offer special courses and fine courses based on the local traditional culture and art resources, combine modern education technology and talent cultivation concepts, and take promotion of students’aesthetic appreciation capabilities and expertise as the core task, so as to become a first-class integrated fine arts college with characteristics of normal universities by 2022.
