From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tsing Hua University orTHU is a university inBeijing,People's Republic of China. It is regarded as one of the best and most selective universities in China. It was established in 1911 as a school forChinese graduates wanting to go further with their studies at universities in other countries, especially theUnited States and theUnited Kingdom.:
Tsing Hua University was opened in Beijing, China in 1911 on the site of a former royal garden belonging to a prince. It was first apreparatory school, a school for preparation, for students to be later sent by the government to study in America. The people who graduated were transferred directly toAmerican schools as juniors upon graduation.
In 1925, the school established its College Department and started its research institute on Chinese Study. In 1928, the name officially changed to National []Tsing Hua University]].:
The communist victory at the end of theChinese Civil War in 1949 led to the creation of thePeople's Republic of China, so the university's President Mei Yi Qi and some professors went toTaiwan where they established the National Tsing Hua Institute of Nuclear Technology in 1955, which later becameNational Tsing Hua University.:
In 1952, the communist government regrouped the country's higher education institutions in an attempt to build aSoviet style system, with individual institutions specialising in a certain field of study. TsingHua University was disassembled, losing itslaw school, school ofagriculture, school ofsciences andhumanities, and became a polytechnicengineering university. Even so, the University remained in the top tier schools in China (Many Chinese scholars say that its only rival isPeking University). Following this regroup, the school was often referred to as the "MIT of China"[1][2][3]Archived 2008-04-09 at theWayback Machine . From the 1980s, the university began to incorporate amultidisciplinary system. As a result, a lot of schools were built and rebuilt. These included the School of Science, School ofEconomics andManagement, School of Humanities andSocial Sciences, School of Law, School ofPublic Administration, and the School ofArt. Only two colleges chargetuition to its graduate students; the law school and the Academy of Arts and Design.:
During theCultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the university became a battlefield between different sects ofMao's Red Guards and a stronghold of theradicals. It did not resume its normal operation until 1977 when theCultural Revolution was officially put to an end.
Since 1977, the university has enjoyed rich government funding and policy support which greatly improved its facilities. Its graduate school has been recognized nationally, ranking first in the National Evaluation of Graduate Schools. The School of Continuing Education uses modern information technologies, as well as the advanced educational resources atTsing Hua.:
Most Chinese university rankings place TsingHua first in China. It attracts the most talented students of the nation and enjoys the best engineering and applied sciences programs in China, occupying a position similar to MIT,Stanford, andPrinceton in the US.Peking Union Medical College of Tsinghua University[4] is regarded as the bestmedical school in the country. Tsinghua's longtime rivalPeking University is better known fornatural sciences, social sciences, law, andliberal arts.
Admission to Tsinghua is highly competitive. The majority of selected students are national scholars and among the brightest high school graduates in the country. Many of China's top scientists, engineers, politicians and business leaders are among Tsinghuaalumni. The former Chinese leader (2002-2012),Hu Jintao, is a former Tsinghua student who graduated with a degree inhydraulic engineering in 1964. The currentGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party of China (since 2012),Xi Jinping, is a former Tsinghua student who graduated with a degree inchemical engineering in 1979.:
In 2003,Tsinghua University had 12 colleges and 48 departments, 41 research institutes, 35 research centers, and 167 laboratories, including 15 national key laboratories. In September 2006,Peking Union Medical College was renamed to Peking Union Medical College, Tsinghua University[5] . The university offers 51bachelor's degree programs, 139master's degree programs and 107Ph.D. programs. Recently, Tsinghua has become the first Chinese university to offer aMaster of Laws program inAmericanlaw, through a cooperative venture with theTemple University Beasley School of Law. The university is a member ofLAOTSE, an international network of leading universities in Europe and Asia. Each year, the University celebrates the Intellectual Property Summer Institute in cooperation withFranklin Pierce Law Center ofConcord,New Hampshire.:
On April 12, 2007,Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management became the first business school in the Chinese mainland to earnAACSB accreditation. Former PremierZhu Rongji was the founding dean of the school.:
It is located on the former site ofQing Dynasty royal gardens and retains some Chinese-style landscaping as well as some traditional buildings, but many of its buildings are Western-style reflecting the American influence in its history. It is known throughoutChina for having one of the most beautiful campuses.:
The university's architect T. Chuang, a 1914 graduate of theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, modeled his designs for the quadrangle and auditorium of Tsinghua on the Illinois campus, specifically imitating Foellinger Auditorium, located on the quad at theUniversity of Illinois.[2]
Tsinghua's early school anthem was composed by an American instructor Miss Katherine E. Seelye. In 1923, another version with lyrics in Chinese (by Prof. Wang Luan Xiang, a Chinese language professor of Tsinghua) was composed by Mrs. Zhang Hui Zhen and was well received by the students and faculty. The song was then adopted as the school's official Alma Mater.:
Cheer for old Tsinghua Tsinghua must win. Fight to the finish, never give in. You do your best, boys, we'll do the rest, boys. Fight for the victory, Rha, Rha, Rha!
Tsinghua University has signed agreements withACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), the renowned international accountancy body that offersChartered Certified Accountant qualification worldwide, to train the new generation of professional accountants inChina. Under the agreement, Tsinghua will develop the programme that under ACCA's syllabus for enablingChina's young accounting students to join the ACCA professional exam scheme at a higher level. Tsinghua will also recognise theOxford Brookes UniversityBSc Applied Accounting degree, which has been successfully developed in conjunction with ACCA and which enables students who have completed two parts of the ACCA qualification to apply for theOxford University Brookes degree.:
