Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

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The University was created in June 1995 by merging the then existing Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages and Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Trade. The former was established in 1965, then one of the three institutes of foreign languages under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. The latter was founded in 1980, at the time one of the four institutions of its kind under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Currently the University offers 46 BA-degree courses in 16 faculties and 3 departments, which fall into seven major disciplines, namely literature, economics, management, law, education, science and engineering. The University has been actively pioneering the flexibility in degree course development in order to meet the needs of rapid social and economic changes. As early as 1981, the University (then Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages) won the qualification to confer Master's degrees and later in 1986 it became an institution eligible to award Doctoral degrees. This made it one of the earliest entitled to do so after the country resumed the enrolment of postgraduate students. Of all the degree courses offered to students, five are named key disciplines at the provincial level and one at the national level, while eight are named provincial noted specialties. GDUFS has two state-designated research centers, one for research in humanities and social sciences and the other for training students of minor languages. In addition, the university has a province-designated research center for the study of foreign literatures and cultures.

1 Faculties
2 Campus
3 Student activities
4 The Library of GDUFS
5 Notable alumni and alumnae

[edit] Faculties

There are 19 faculties in the university:

Faculty of English Language and Culture
School of International Trade and Economics
School of English for International Business
School of Management
Faculty of European Languages and Cultures
Faculty of Asian Languages and Cultures
Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture
School of Legal Studies
Institute for English Language Education
School of Informatics
School of Politics and Public Administration
School of Interpreting and Translation Studies
School of Journalism and Communication
College of Art
Division for Graduate Studies
Department of Physical Education
College of Continuing Education
International College
Department of Chinese for International Students

[edit] Campus

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS) is one of the most prestigious universities of international studies in China and one of the key institutions of higher learning in Guangdong Province. The university, which has a total area of 2172 mu (1.44 km2), is situated in the city of Guangzhou, a city with a long history and a rich cultural legacy, as well as an economic hub in south China. At present, it has three campuses. The North Campus lies to the north of the Baiyun Hills, and Dalang Campus is not far away. The new campus, namely the South Campus lies in Guangzhou University Town. With an elegant environment featuring green hills, fresh air, and a limpid creek with small bridges across it, the University is an ideal place for study.

The students of GDUFS come from over 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in the country. Only the best candidates have a chance to be admitted to the undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Graduates from this university are expected to be able to take part in international competition with their academic attainment and expertise. They will be advanced specialists in their respective fields on the one hand, and skilled in general qualities on the other hand, good at using the foreign languages they have learned and able to apply information technology. As what students learn at GDUFS is in high demand, our graduates enjoy a higher employment rate than graduates from most other universities.

At present GDUFS has a 900-strong staff, including 333 full/associate professors. In addition, we employ 62 experts/lecturers from other countries. Altogether over 20,000 students are studying at the university, of whom about 16,000 are undergraduates and postgraduates, the others being self-taught learners receiving training in preparation for exams, foreign students learning Chinese, and trainees of other categories.

[edit] Student activities

Academic Festival
This festival, held every term, is very significant in stimulating the students'
creativity and fostering their comprehensive abilities. It reflects the spirit
of creation and the passion of seeking real knowledge. Besides that, it also
strengthens mutual communication and assistance among all the faculties, and
helps raise the academic level of GDUFS. The festival's aim is to raise the
comprehensive abilities of the students, not only in terms of knowledge, but
also in terms of creativity and inspiration through activities such as the
Simulated Court held by the School of Legal Studies and the Students' Creative
Design Competition held by the Student Union.

English Olympics
The English Olympics is a new contest undertaken on GDUFS' south campus. It has
been held two times since 2005, aiming to boost the image and atmosphere of
English culture learning of GDUFS among the universities in University Town.

Sound of Autumn
The art activities at GDUFS, from photography to singing, are so flourishing
that it is impossible to list all of them. So let us name only the most famous
one -- the Sound of Autumn. The competition each year is so intense that
hundreds of students register for the competition but only a dozen reach the
final. The incredible musical talents of the competitors are praised and
marveled at by teachers, students and even professionals.

English Proficiency Contest
This contest boosts the comprehensive skills of cross-cultural communication in
English of GDUFS students, fostering teamwork spirit and innovation ability and
illustrating the excellence of English teaching at GDUFS.

GDUFS Cup Ball Games
The GDUFS Cup Ball games include GDUFS Cup Basketball, GDUFS Cup Football, GDUFS
Cup Table Tennis, etc. These games are feasts for GDUFS' sports fans. In
addition, these games provide a platform for the students to make more friends.

Serve the Countryside in Three Domains—Science, culture and sanitation
Every year, thousands of GDUFS students will spend their summer time in some
remote areas of China, to share their knowledge, enthusiasm, and sense of social
commitment. This activity has a major influence both inside the university and
in the society. Over several years, GDUFS teachers and students have pressed
their footprints on the land of many less developed areas both in and out of
Guangdong province. Students taking part in this activity usually engage in
English teaching, medical service, household appliance repair, etc. They put
their knowledge learned in class into useful practice in the society.

Faculty of English Language and Culture (FELC)

English Pronunciation & Intonation Contest
The English Pronunciation & Intonation Contest is held for the freshmen of the
Faculty of English Language and Culture. The contest has been organized
with success eight times since 1997, aiming to evaluate and enhance the level of
pronunciation and intonation of the freshmen. Possessing good pronunciation and
intonation will increase the students' oral English level and promote a
favorable English-learning atmosphere.

English-speaking Contest
The English-speaking Contest also stems from 1997 and has gone through eight sessions
since then. Participants in this contest are mainly sophomores. Considering the
need for higher-level improvement in English for the students who already master
English well, the contest provides them with a chance to test their English
knowledge, English thinking and oral English in particular, and a stage to show
their abilities.

English Drama Night
The English Drama Night is a contest of professional level and is very popular among
teachers and students and famous both inside and outside the university. Since
1997, this contest has been held eight times. Experts in the field of English
and American drama are invited to the contest as judges. The plays in the
contest are all masterpieces of English and American writers. The students adapt
the masterpieces and produce their own versions.

Interpretation Contest
The Interpretation Contest is tailored for the students who are going to graduate.
This contest requires knowledge of Chinese and English as well as sound
awareness of eastern and western cultures and instant reacting ability. The form
of the contest is quite unique: ten teachers, including Chinese and English
teachers, forming two teams, engage in a Chinese-English debate. The
contestants' task is to interpret the teachers' statements into English or
Chinese, respectively.

Translation Contest
Compared to the other four contests, this contest is younger and has more vitality,
for it has a wide range of target students—students of the first to the fourth
grade of FELC. The contest intends to cultivate the interest in written
translation and evaluate the level of written translation of the senior grade
students. The Translation Contest requires rich language skills and ingenuity.

School of International Trade & Economics (SITE)

Future Star of SITE
The subject of the Future Star contest is to review and to research the economic
hotspots. This subject covers a wide range of topics, including situation
analysis of macroeconomics and microeconomics, international trade theories and
operations, financial theories and practices, etc. The jury mainly scrutinizes
the contestants' ability of analyzing and handling the economic hotspot issues
using their professional knowledge. The contest also encourages contestants to
dig out the connotations under the phenomena and express their opinions and
suggestions on the issues.

English Talent Competition
This contest is targeted at SITE students, providing a stage for them to stand out and
speak out in English. The winner of this contest will have the opportunity to
advance to the semifinal of the English Proficiency Competition at school level.

Cultural Journey of SITE
Presented by the Study Department of SITE’s Students' Union, the Cultural Journey of
SITE includes a series of activities, aiming to enrich the campus life and
activate the academic atmosphere of the School of International Trade &
Economics. It includes, for example, the Freshmen Cup Debate and lectures
concerning economics.

International Business English College (IBEC)

Star of IBEC--Comprehensive English Contest
As one of the three traditional contests of IBEC, this contest is for the sophomores.
It is designed according to the characteristics of the majors in IBEC, aiming to
evaluate how well the students have mastered the English and Business knowledge
and to cultivate the students' abilities of creation, teamwork and application
of acquired knowledge. The contest usually contains five phases: the strike
pose, the listening comprehension, the word guessing, the boardroom debate and
the project bidding.

Culture Square of English in the Global Village
Sponsored by the committee of the Communist Youth League and the Students'
Union, aiming to introduce the exotic cultures of the U.S.A, UK, Germany,
France, India, Brazil, Egypt, Italy, Spain, and Saudi Arabia, this activity is
quite interesting. It has provided propaganda for the faculty for it introduces
the unique cultural style of IBEC to the outside world.

School of Management

Simulated Trade Fair
After several years of development, this activity has become one of the brand
activities of the School of Management. The so-called Simulated Trade Fair is a
simulation of the Canton Fair (or the Chinese Exporting Commodities Fair).
Students can freely build up their company, and then play the roles of
salesperson/purchaser/buyer to participate in the trade. After calculating the
marketing costs and profits, one company is declared the winner.

Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture

Bilingual Contest of Comprehensive Skills
This contest is co-organized by the faculty and E-Jungle (a students' association of
GDUFS) and has gained popularity among the students. This activity used to be
the brand activity of the School of Communication (the predecessor of the
Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture). Now the Faculty of Chinese Language
and Culture has inherited this traditional contest aiming to incarnate the
faculty’s distinctive feature of equal emphasis on English and Chinese learning.

[edit] The Library of GDUFS

The GDUFS Library was set up in June 1995 by merging the then existing Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages Library and the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Trade Library. The total floor space of the library is 22,000 square meters on the north campus and 28,000 square meters on the south campus. The gross investment in the two libraries has reached nearly 200 million Yuan. Both libraries boast a variety of technical features such as an advanced central air-conditioning system, fire protection, security monitoring and overall computer wiring. The library has an area of 16,000 square meters of open-shelf stack rooms for reading and borrowing, a multi-purpose auditorium with 450 seats, and projection and audio systems. Compared with other universities in China, the equipment in the library is top class: there are two Sun800 mini-computer servers, a Sun6320 storage system with a 10 T capacity, 120 Cisco switches, 13 self-help copying machines and 2900 information nodes.

After years of expansion, the GDUFS Library has built up a comprehensive library collection, outstanding especially in the field of foreign studies. By April 2005, the collection held by the library amounted to 1.23 million volumes with 820,000 Chinese books, 240,000 English books, 130,000 minor foreign language books and 12,000 non-book materials in 12 different languages. The GDUFS Library subscribes to more than 2,400 Chinese and foreign periodicals -- among which 249 are original foreign periodicals. Abundant monographs of linguistics, literature, trade and economy, periodicals, reference books and 14 kinds of Chinese and foreign language web database resources constitute the literature base of the library. The number of English books in the economic field has increased rapidly during the last three years and now ranks the first among the collections of our library. This provides a powerful literature guarantee for the recent adjustment of subjects and majors of our school.

In the past decade, the library has been increasing the number of subscriptions to electronic information, especially to overseas full text network databases. In 2005, we subscribed to 17 electronic information databases from home and abroad at an expense of 800,000 RMB. Besides, our library has established its own databases such as, “Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Full Text Database," “Full Text Database for Master and Doctor Theses at GDUFS," “Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Key Discipline Network Source Navigator," etc. In recent years, the library has also provided high-level information services based on the network such as, conveyance of original literature, on-line consultation, on-line audiovisual service and the like, which are very popular among the readers. The widespread application of digital resources indicates the trend in the improvement of the library storage system, and marks a new stage in its development of information service.

Currently, the ALEPH500 system, with internationally advanced standard, is applied by our library to classify books, journals and other materials. In terms of its management, the library integrates such services as collecting, lending, reading and researching, guided by the ‘readers first' principle. At present, the library includes the following departments: Acquisition & Cataloguing Department, Circulation Department, Reference Services Department, Technical Services Department and General Office. The number of staff members totals 82. Readers can enjoy many services besides borrowing and reading books and journals. For example, they can consult information, copy materials and ask the staff for original volumes. In addition, readers may receive training and other media services. The library boasts 4,648 seats for readers to read, and 540 seats for them to search information through computers. Every week, the total opening time of major readers' service areas reaches up to 80 hours. As for the study room with 204 seats in the basement, the opening time is 24 hours a day.

With the reform and development of the university, the GDUFS Library continues to expand its collection, improve its services and enhance its technical and automatic management. It aims not only to provide a quiet place for readers to study and conduct research but also to create an academic information service system featuring flexible services, advanced management and application of the latest information technology.

[edit] Notable alumni and alumnae

Xu Zhenhua, born in 1950 in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, received his college education at Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages (GIFL, now Guangdong University of Foreign Studies), and has served the University since his graduation in 1975. He studied French, literature and higher education management at the University of Mohammad 5th, Morocco, the University of La Nouvelle Sorbonne Paris III, France, and Montreal University, Canada. Upon his return to GDUFS, Xu conducted research on Chinese-French neologisms under the guidance of Professor Huang Jianhua, a renowned lexicographer, translator and scholar, and obtained his Ph.D. degree in Linguistics.
Xu is currently Secretary of the Communist Party Committee of GDUFS, President, Professor, and a supervisor of Ph.D. candidates of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. He is also a member of the National Committee of the ninth CPPCC and a member of the Foreign Language Teaching Steering Committee (FLTSC) of the Ministry of Education plus adjunct team leader of the French team of FLTSC, a member of the Standing Committee of the Social Science League of Guangdong Province and Vice-chairman of the China French Literature Society.

Professor/Dr Chen Jianping was born in Guangdong in 1955. He Majored in English Language & Literature in the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages (now Guangdong University of Foreign Studies) and graduated from the English Department in 1975. He later studied in the Graduate School of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and received the degree of Master of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics. He also obtained an MA degree in Modern Social History from the Department of History at the University of Lancaster, UK. He did his PhD studies at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and was awarded the PhD Degree in English Language and Literature.
Professor/Dr Chen has held various teaching, research and administrative positions in this university ever since he graduated from the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages. He has been serving as Vice-president of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies since 1995. He is also a Member of the National Foreign Languages Teaching Advisory Board under the Ministry of Education; Vice President of China English Language Education Association; Vice Director of the National Research Association of International Business English and Vice President of Guangdong Foreign Language Association.
His academic interests include research in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and ESL/EFL teaching & learning, intercultural communication. In 1991, he was awarded the title of Returned Scholar with Outstanding Achievements by the State Educational Commission and the Ministry of Personnel. He also won the first prize of the Guangdong Teaching Achievements Award in 1996 and the second prize of the National Teaching Achievements Award in 1997. He is at present conducting a research project in EFL learning in the Chinese Socio-cultural Context funded by the National Research Fund for Social Sciences.

Dong Xiaoling was born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. He worked in a state-owned farm in Baoting County, Hainan Province, during the late 1960s. In March 1978, he was admitted to Sun Yat-sen University, majoring in Economics. Upon graduation in 1982, he stayed in Sun Yat-sen as a lecturer and received his post-graduate degree in Economics in 1988. He was promoted to the rank of professor in 1996. He studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong during the 1980s and at Springfield College, USA, during the 1990s. After that, he worked as an acting-editor of the Social Sciences Edition of the Sun Yat-sen University Campus Newspaper. At GDUFS, Prof. Dong has worked in succession as Dean of the Economics Department, Dean of the Office of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Student Career Services Centre. Prof. Dong assumed the position of Vice-president of GDUFS in June 2002.
Prof. Dong has a rich experience in Economics and Business Administration courses for undergraduates and postgraduates. He began to recruit Economics postgraduates in 1994. His research mainly focuses on management and socialist market economy. He has organized and participated in several state-level and provincial-level research programs and has participated as main and adjunct editor in the publication of 20 textbooks, books and reference books. He has published over 70 papers on Economics and Management, mostly in the areas of Principles of Economics, Economic Reform, Business, Marketing & Enterprise Management, Higher Education Management, etc.
He was among the first economists to put forward the idea that China's Economic Reform should take the Market Economy as a model and offered a systematic elaboration of this reform model. The educational reform program that he initiated, namely Innovation in the Teaching Content and System of the Political Economy Course, was awarded the First Prize of the Fourth Guangdong Excellent Teaching Achievements at the provincial level and Second Prize of the Teaching Achievements at the state level.
In 2001, Prof. Dong was given the Guangdong Province Excellent Teacher Award for both imparting knowledge and educating people. At present, he leads many state and provincial academic societies. Among other functions, he is Vice-chairman of the Chinese Capital Research Society, Vice-chairman of the Chinese Society for the Study of Socialist Economic Law and System and an economic consultant for local governments and related institutions.
As Vice-president, Professor Dong is in charge of the South Campus and responsible for the overall publicity of GDUFS. He co-manages the academic teaching work and the campus cultural construction. He supervises and liaises with the Faculty of English Language & Culture and the School of Informatics.