It was formed in 1951 by the merger of the Great China University (est. 1924) and Kwang Hua University (est. 1925) and originated from the St. John's College founded in 1879. As of 2020, ECNU is organized into 22 schools, colleges, and institutes, located in two campuses throughout Minhang and Putuo.
East China Normal University traces its roots to the formation of St. John's College (later to become St. John's University) in 1879, and its heritage has had a deep influence in the development of Chinese modern higher education.[2]
In 1879, St. John's College was founded by William Jones Boone and Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, by combining two pre-existing Anglican colleges in Shanghai. In 1905, the college became St. John's University and was registered in Washington D.C. in the United States. It was the first institution to grant bachelor's degrees in China, starting in 1907.
In 1924, after a student protest at the Xiamen University in Fujian some academics fled north to Shanghai, where they established what became the Great China University (also known as Daxia University).
Establishment of the university
Siqun Auditorium built in 1946, named in memory of Wang Boqun, former president of the Great China University and the first Minister of Communications.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, East China Normal University was officially formed in 1951 by the merger of the Great China University and the Kwang Hua University, and was joined at the same time by a number of faculty members from Fudan University, Tongji University, University of Shanghai and East China PE Academy, making it the first national teacher’s training university of the People's Republic of China. This was done in part due to the government's desire to pool these institutions' resources into a single, stronger entity, cultivate talents with professional knowledge, and promote the development of education in the country.
In March 1959, ECNU was authenticated as one of the first 16 National Key Universities in China, and this status was reaffirmed in 1978. From 1972 to 1980 (during the Cultural Revolution in mainland China), five schools including ECNU were merged to create Shanghai Normal University, and in 1980 its original name was resumed.[4]
Diploma of East China Normal University, 1953.
1980 to present
University Library, Minhang Campus.
In June 1986, ECNU was selected to be one of the first 33 higher education institutions authorized, by the State Council, to establish their graduate schools. In 1996, ECNU passed the prerequisites appraisal and became one of universities sponsored by the major national program "Project 211". In 2006, the Ministry of Education and Shanghai Municipality signed into a partnership for co-sponsoring the development of the university, qualifying ECNU as a member of the "Project 985".
ECNU is now under the direct auspices of the Ministry of Education. The university sponsors or supervises publication of more than 20 academic journals and periodicals. The library collection exceeds 4,000,000 volumes. 25 primary or secondary schools are affiliated to the university.
International partnerships
The university has established strategic cooperative partnership with universities such as École Normale Supérieure and its group in France, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University in USA, Tokyo University and Kobe University in Japan, and the University of Melbourne in Australia, the University of Warwick in the UK, etc. It has been carrying out academic exchanges with over 150 universities and institutions of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, Korea, and Russia, etc. ECNU plays host to a CIEE satellite campus, where 100 American college students study each semester. The university also runs an Online College of the Chinese language in collaboration with the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOCFL), which is the first of its kind to be established in the country with over 5,800 students in 137 countries and regions. In 2008, it set up the NOCFL Study and Training Base for International Chinese Teachers.
Along with several other Chinese universities, East China Normal University has hosted the United Kingdom (UK) government-funded Study China Programme for a number of years.[11] In this programme, students from UK institutions spend one to two summer months studying Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture at a university in China. The programme is organised by the University of Manchester and is fully funded by UK government bodies, such as the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Its purpose is to strengthen ties between UK university students and China, in particular as relatively few British students enroll in degrees in China. The programme has increased relations between ECNU and numerous leading UK universities.[12]
Diplomats' Program
Sponsored by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office, the Diplomats' Program has been organized by ECNU since 2011. In this program, consular officials from over 20 countries spend two months during summer studying at East China Normal University.[13]
At present the university is made up of 24 full-time schools and colleges, 2 unconventional colleges and 5 advanced research institutes, with 58 departments offering 79 undergraduate programs. The university also comprises 3 affiliated schools: NYU Shanghai, Asia-Europe Business School and ECNU-UNC School of Sino-American Innovative Education.
Full-time schools and colleges
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Economics and Management
School of Humanities and Social Science
School of Social Development
School of Foreign Languages
International College of Chinese Studies
School of Psychology and Cognitive Science
Preschool and Special Education School
School of Sports and Health
School of Communication
School of Art
School of Design
School of Urban and Regional Science
School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences
School of Geographic Sciences
School of Life Sciences
School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering
School of Science and Engineering
School of Information Science and Technology
School of Computer Science and Software Engineering
International Teachers College of Chinese Language and Culture
Institute for Advanced International and Regional Studies
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies
Institute of Arts
Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities
The Software Engineering Institute is one of the 35 statewide pilot schools of software engineering granted by Ministry of Education in 2001; the International College of Chinese Studies is among the eight State Bases for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, certified by the Ministry of Education. ECNU is designated as one of the National Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences Training and Research Bases in its disciplines of Chinese, History, Mathematics, Geography, Psychology and Physics.
ECNU's Business School was founded by the pioneer of China's Economics and Financing studies, Prof. Chen Biao Ru. Hence, the Business School of ECNU inherited the good tradition and enjoys top reputation in the economic and financial circle in China.
The Ministry of Education's Training Center for Secondary School Principals at ECNU is a state base for the training of secondary school principals in Mainland China and advanced studies of those in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. ECNU is the only university in China designated as a national training center for elite secondary school principals and enjoys the reputation as the "Whampoa Military Academy" for secondary school principals.[citation needed]
The university is officially authorized to offer programs:
in two of the Primary Disciplines and five of the Sub-Disciplines, which are enlisted as National Key Disciplines;
in five of the disciplines, which are enlisted as Preparatory National Key Disciplines,
in 12 disciplines enlisted as Shanghai Key Disciplines.
Key laboratories
It has two State Key Laboratories, one National Field Observation and Research Station, six Key Labs or Engineering Centers, and six Key Research Bases for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education. ECNU is authorized to offer 112 doctoral programs covering 14 Primary Disciplines, 178 master's programs in six specialties, i.e., Education, Public Administration, Engineering, Physical Education and Business Administration, and to set up 14 post-doctoral mobile research stations.
State key laboratories
State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research[14]
State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy[15]
Key laboratories of provincial level and ministerial level
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education
Key Laboratory of Geography-Information Science, Ministry of Education
Shanghai Institute of Brain Functional Genomics[16]
ECNU has a faculty body of over 4,000, among whom there are 2000 full-time teachers (including over 1,200 professors or associate professors), 14 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or Chinese Academy of Engineering (six of them are academicians of both academies), 11 members of the State Council Academic Appraisal Committee, eight specially hired professors or lecture professors for the Yangtze Scholar Award Program sponsored by the Ministry of Education, nine "state-level talents" chosen by the New-Century Talents Project, ten National Outstanding Youth Fund award winner, 80 specially hired professors or lecture professors for ECNU's Zijiang Scholar Award Program, and 105 tenured professors.[citation needed]
The previous main campus was located in the Putuo District of Shanghai, formerly a campus of the Great China University. The campus is an enclosed campus of gardens, lawns, and historic buildings interspersed with modern facilities, in a location in downtown Shanghai. The university also provides transportation by shuttle bus to its new Minhang Campus.
The campus still houses a variety of scientific research institutions, such as State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research and State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy.
The university's athletic facilities include an outdoor track, outdoor basketball courts, indoor basketball courts, and indoor tennis and badminton courts.
Minhang Campus
The Minhang new campus is located in the Minhang District on the outskirts of metropolitan Shanghai. Most administrative and academic framework of the university and the majority of undergraduate and graduate students are situated at this campus, which is accompanied by the Minhang Campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
