Founded in 1951, the university was incorporated by two independent colleges under the name Hunan Agricultural College. Since Hunan was an agricultural powerhouse for the country, Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic of China, inscribed the school's name on its entrance sign. It changed to its current name in 1994.
The institution began with a focus on training students in various agricultural disciplines. After more than a half century's development, the school has evolved into a renowned comprehensive university. In 1978, HAU started to award master's degrees. As of 2007,[update] more than 50,000 students from 31 provinces across China study there, including 24,000 undergraduates, 26,000 continuing education students, 3000 graduate and doctoral students.
Organization and administration
The current president of the university is Fu Shaohui, who has served since 2014. The university has 7 vice presidents.
A semester system is used - i.e., the academic year is divided into two terms. The first (fall) semester lasts from September to January; the second (spring) semester from February to June. Each consists of 18 teaching weeks, finals are generally held in week 19.
Hunan Agricultural University is divided into 20 colleges:
College of Agriculture
College of Animal Science
College of Biosafety Science and Technology
College of Bioscience
College of Business
College of Continuing Education
College of Economics
College of Engineering
College of Food Science
College of Foreign Languages
College of Horticulture and Landscape
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
College of Information Science
College of Natural Resources and Environment
College of Science
College of Sports & Arts
Oriental College of Science & Technology
College of Education (Teachers College)
College of Veterinary Medicine
Academics
night view of the Library
HUNAU offers 69 bachelors, 101 masters and 52 doctorate degree programs. Also, it contains 7 postdoctoral research institutes, 1 national research center and 3 national engineering laboratories.
There are 1198 full-time faculty, including 3 fellows of Chinese Academy of Engineering, 226 doctoral advisors, 432 master advisors, 234 professors and 515 associate professors. Among them, 4 were awarded the title of National Outstanding Experts. The university also participates in the Changjiang Scholars Program, 100 Talents Program and Recruitment Program of Global Experts.
Since the ninth five-year plan, HAU has been awarded 182 prizes, 13 of them were the national prizes, 169 were ministerial or provincial level prizes. In recent years, the university has undertaken over 145 research projects at national level and 918 projects at provincial level.
In 2007, the university had 16 enterprises of sole proprietorship or proprietorship. The total fund is 40 million RMB, and the annual income reaches 109 million RMB.[2]
The 2023 CWTS Leiden Ranking ranked Hunan Agricultural University at # 946 in the world based on their publications for the period 2018–2021.[7]
Overall, Hunan Agricultural University was ranked among the top 1100 universities worldwide according to several major international universities rankings.[3][4][8][7]
The university is situated in the eastern suburbs of Changsha, with views of the city skyline. The Nongda area is comparable to a college town or even an edge city and many residents seldom go to downtown because of heavy traffic and overcrowding on bus route 317. However, with the opening of metro line 2, going to down and traveling through Changsha has become a breeze. The university has a single campus, botoded on the north by the busy thoroughfare - Renmin Road (East); on the south by Liuyang River; on the east by lakes and the west by farmland.
The campus has eleven numbered academic buildings and several administrative buildings. There are four large-scale residence areas: Fengze, Zhilan, Donghu, and Jin'an. Each area has about a dozen halls. The residence areas are coed but halls are single sex. Most of the rooms in Fengze, Donghu and Jin'an accommodate four people with basic facilities. Lights out time is at 11:00 p.m. in all areas for undergraduates. Some students, both undergrad and postgrad, have chosen to rent in apartment buildings adjacent to campus for better convenience and environment.
