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2020 has been such an unusual year——due to the epidemic, nearly all in our life was messed up. Hard as it was, let’s see what happened at SCNU during this year.
SCNUers during the epidemic
February was a key time for epidemic prevention and control, and on the 25th day of this month, Professor Shu Wensheng and his team from the School of Life Science, developed a kit which can detect the coronavirus in only for 40 minutes, greatly contributing to the prevention and control work.
Professor Shu Wensheng and the team member at work.
Apart from this, SCNUers have been doing and experiencing other things.
On 29 January, a team of more than 200 experts of South China Normal University and the Guangdong Psychological Association started offering psychological counseling services to the public including programs such as a hotline and Internet consultation, aiming to help those people in need tackle their psychological problems caused by the pandemic.
A hotline and Internet consultation reported by GDTV.
From 7 till 16 February, 84 students from SCNU formed a youth volunteer teaching team on line, offering a 10-day on-line teaching service, thereby making their own contributions.
On 23 February, CCNU and SCNU broadcast an on-line visual choir performance Stay With Me for Wuhan, the city in lockdown because of the epidemic, hoping to ease people’s helplessness and sadness with music.
The online visual choir for Wuhan.
Then on 2 March, at the beginning of the new semester in 2020, SCNU adopted a special approach to kick off the new school year with about 20 representatives of teachers and students gathered on the Shipai campus to attend the national flag-raising ceremony and more than 40,000 teachers and students across the country watching the event via Internet.
The flag-raising ceremony on the Shipai campus.
On 9 April, the School of Psychology organized a lecture about psychological adjustment for graduates to ease mental stress caused by the epidemic.
On 25 and 26 April, the School of Educational Information Technology organized about 40 lectures and publicized collected social welfare resources to meet the teaching needs during and after the epidemic.
With excitement, on 20, May, SCNU welcomed its first batch of returning students, all of whom were postgraduates.
The first batch of returning students.
On 9 July, SCNU held a special commencement and degree-conferring ceremony for the 2020 graduates at the handball arena of its Shipai campus, which was also livestreamed on the Internet. About 400 graduates, together with school leaders and teacher representatives, attended the ceremony on the site, while over 11,000 graduates and their friends and relatives watched the live broadcast at home.
The commencement and degree-conferring ceremony for the 2020 graduates.
On 17 September, the convocation ceremony for the 2020 cohort of students was held on the Shipai campus of SCNU with over 400 student, faculty, and staff representatives participating at the scene. Due to the epidemic, this year’s ceremony was simultaneously broadcast on line, and over 12,000 new students watched the event. On that day, nearly all SCNUers came back to school for normal study.
The convocation ceremony for the 2020 cohort of students.
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SCNUers win glory for SCNU
Despite the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, students of SCNU still won awards in many competitions in 2020 and won glory for the university.
In terms of science and engineering, SCNUers have won many prizes in all sorts of competitions with their rigorous style of study and exquisite skills.
On 14 August, 3 projects of students from the School of Information and Optoelectronics Science and Engineering were shortlisted for the 8th National University Students’ Opt-Sci-Tech Competition, which is the top competition for university optoelectronic majors. Because of our team’s good performance, SCNU won the award of the best organization unit for the first time.
The project that was shortlisted.
On 19 August, the students of our school won 8 second prizes and 13 third prizes in the final of the "13th Chinese Collegiate Computing Competition" (also known as 4C2020) held on 19 August, setting a new record with 21 awards. Nearly 700 colleges and universities from across the country took part in the competition and submitted over 30,000 projects. Through the selection and recommendation of each provincial competition area, 4,646 submitted works were selected to the national finals and 4,000 works won awards.
On 17 December, the organizing committee of the 2020 National College Students Physics Experiment Competition (Innovation Competition) announced the winners, and the team from the School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering won two first prizes and two third prizes.
Student demonstrate her project at the competition.
The excellent result of these competitions fully reflects the students’ solid theoretical knowledge, profound experimental ability and enterprising spirit of daring to innovate.
Talking about innovation, we have to mention the 6th China International College Students "Internet+" Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition held in August of 2020.
SCNU attained a new record with four times gold and seven times silver in the Guangdong Province section of the 6th China International College Students "Internet+" Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition held in early August.
On 19 November, Gemi Technology, a student-led SCNU start-up company, won a gold medal at the 6th China International College Students' “Internet +” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition held at the South China University of Technology. It is the first time that SCNU has won a gold medal at the competition.
On top of winning the gold, another student-led SCNU start-up company Pushi Technology, a leader in intelligent canteens based on visual recognition technology, was award the silver medal. Pushi boasts being the first artificial intelligence company in China to apply flexible object image recognition technology to the field of the settlement of catering bills.
Over six million people from 4,186 schools in 117 countries and regions registered for 1.47 million programs in this year’s competition. Despite the fierce competition, projects developed by SCNU teams have managed to win the best achievements since the 2015 competition. Altogether, SCNU won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.
The award ceremony of the innovation competition.
What’s more, on 17 October, the student team from SCNU won the first prize at a nation-level environmental science popularization competition. Their work stood out among 600 entries from 80 universities nationwide. On top of the first prize, they also won the title “Envoy of popular science education of water environment and ecology” and internship opportunities offered by organizers of the contest.
Students from SCNU attending the Award Ceremony.
SCNU attaches great importance to practical teaching, provides space and financial support for students’ personality development, and makes more outstanding talents come to the fore.
As a teacher training college, a batch of outstanding students and teachers also won glory for SCNU.
Two teachers from SCNU won first and second prizes during the finals of the 5th National University Teaching Competition for Young Teachers, held at Nanjing University from 26 to 30 October. Zhang Yonggang, a teacher from the School of Marxism, won the first prize in the Ideological and Political Group. He is the only contestant from Guangdong province to win a first prize in the competition. The other teacher, Xu Guiqing, from the School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, won the second prize in the Science Group.
Two teachers awarded at the national teaching competition.
On 21 December, two students from the School of Foreign Studies won first prizes of the National English Normal University Students Quality Show Activity.
Students who won the first prize.
SCNUers also have an all-around ability in areas such as morals, intelligence, physical fitness, work and aesthetics.
Students from SCNU won the championship in the University World Heritage Protection Proposal Competition on 26 September.
On 12 October, Liu Xiang and Wang Xueer from SCNU met the qualification standard for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as they both won gold medals in the 2020 National Swimming Championship held in Qingdao, in North China’s Shandong province.
Liu Xiang (middle) expected to join Tokyo 2000.
Wang Xueer (second from left) expected to join Tokyo 2000.
On 11 December, a project supported by the Postgraduate Education Support Group of SCNU, won gold in the 5th Chinese Youth Volunteer Service Project Competition.
The volunteers get along well with the kids.
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A more research-based SCNU is being built
Except for the rewards above, SCNU also carries excellent research work.
As a teaching training university, SCNU and nine other universities, including Beijing Normal University and Fudan University, were successfully approved as Ministry of Education bases for the development of teacher ethics and morality.
In the area of discipline development, 28 majors of SCNU were selected as national and provincial first-class undergraduate major development sites in 2019 on the list released by Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China in January, getting first place ranking among the total number of universities in Guangdong province.
What’s more, according to the list of project funding for the 2020 centralized filing and acceptance period released by National Natural Science Foundation of China in September, there was a total of 134 projects of SCNU that had been funded, while 59.07 million yuan in direct funding was received. The number of projects and funding ranked third in the country for teacher training universities. Together with the number of people involved, the figures all reached at an all-time high.
Among the many projects that received funding, Professor Wang Enke's team from the Institute of Quantum Matter and Professor Ying Guangguo's team from the School of Environment were awarded key projects.
Professor Wang Enke's team awarded key projects.
The research team of Professor Zhou Aiguang, Dean of the School of Sports Science, was awarded 28.8 million yuan in funding, making it the largest project in social sciences in the University to date.
SCNU is profoundly dedicated to scientific research. Sixteen achievements of our university won the eighth prize for outstanding achievements in scientific research in higher education. The total number of awards ranked 24th among national universities and the number of first-class awards ranked 11th among national universities and tied 1st in Guangdong province, reaching a record high.
Sixteen achievements prized for outstanding achievements in scientific research in higher education.
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SCNU is becoming more inclusive
In 2020, SCNU cooperated with many other parts of the world.
The unveiling ceremony of the South China Normal University European Center was held at the International Business College on 8 December. The establishment of the center will strengthen the connection between European countries and SCNU as well as promote the international development of the university.
Leaders from SCNU and Tsinghua University, together with participating Consuls-general of various European countries, unveil the plaque of the South China Normal University European Center.
The “Southeast Asia Forum” of the 2020 International Conference & Innovation Forum on Integration of Industry and Education in the Greater Bay Area was held at SCNU. Possible ways to innovative cooperation between the Greater Bay Area and Southeast Asian countries and regions during the epidemic period were discussed at sessions of the forum and conference.
"Southeast Asia Forum" is held from 14–15 November 2020.
The second Hong Kong and Macau Youth Education and Development Forum was also held at SCNU, focusing on reflection and exploration of ways for youth education and development in Hong Kong and Macau.
Scholars at the second Hong Kong and Macau Youth Education and Development Forum.
Meanwhile, special collaboration between SCNU and corporations has been achieved.
In December, SCNU and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation agreement at the Huawei Songshanhu Lake Base, creating a partnership to promote digital transformation in the field of education.
SCNU and Huawei enter into strategic cooperation.
Representatives together unveil the nameplate of the "Intelligent base”.
United as one, we shall work harder. The greater the difficulty, the further we advance. That’s what we learn from 2020. See you in 2021!
Source from the News Center
Translated by Wei Xiaonan, Guo Zekai and Xu Yirui
Proofread by Edwin Baak
Edited by Li Jianru
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