Jiaying University, in the Hakka heartland of Meizhou, China
Jiaying University is located in Meizhou Prefecture, Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China. Meizhou Prefecture borders the Guangdong prefectures of Heyuan, Jieyang, and Chaozhou, Ganzhou Prefecture in Jiangxi Province, and Lon gyan Prefecture in Fujian Province. The university campus has a total area of 45 acres, beautifully landscaped with trees and gardens. Its classrooms, libraries, and other specialized buildings that total more than 140,000 square meters. The campus has be en designed to provide an excellent environment for academic life. The university now has fourteen departments and thirty-two specialities. The fourteen academic departments are: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Chinese, English, Polit ics and Law, Economics, Finance, Electronics, Arts, Architecture, and Physical Education. Jiaying University is now a comprehensive regional university for both Chinese and foreign students. There are a total of 4,700 full-time students in the university, and the attached Evening University has more than 3,000 correspondence students. Visiting scholars from Harvard and other American universities and students from Southeast Asia have come to Jiaying University for research and studies. There are more than 600 university staff members (330 of which are active faculty), including 70 professors and associate professors and 170 lecturers; 40 of the faculty have masters degrees, and two have Ph.D's. More than ten foreign teachers have been invited to lecture f or the university. Li Guohao of the Engineering Institute and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yuhkang Pan, Qiu Chengtong, Han Suyin and other well known scholars are honorary professors of Jiaying University. Prof. Li Guohao and Dr. Zeng Xianzi are honorary university presidents.
In addition to the Hakka Cultural Institute, Jiaying University has other academic research centers. The university publishes three academic journals: The Journal of Jiaying University, The Journal of Hakka Research, and Education Research. University staff members have published 160 academic works and textbooks. 1000 theses have been published in provinicial and national journals by Jiaying Univesity academicians. More than sixty scientific research projects have also been awa rded prizes. There are 300,000 volumes in the libraries book collection, with over 1,200 periodicals. Jiaying Univesity also maintains a computer center, an audio-visual center, and other laboratories that have a value of 10 million RMB. During the last d ecade, donations by overseas Chinese has totalled around 60 million RMB. Mr. Liao Anxiang of Hong Kong has also contributed 106 pieces of his collection of paintings to the university.
With the approval of the Guangdong Provisional Higher Education Department in 1998, Jiaying University is now accepting foreign and overseas Chinese students for programs in Chinese and Hakka culture. The Chinese program emphasizes an immersion app roach to speaking Mandarin. The program in Hakka culture approaches Hakka traditions from a wide-variety of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, history, folklore, and religious studies.
Jiaying University seeks to promote its educational structure, to upgrade its level of teaching, scientific research and management, and to improve classroom teaching, in order to make Jiaying University a high quality, and influential regional uni versity of academic excellence that especially promotes Hakka culture.