The School of Philosophy and Social Development at Huaqiao University was founded in September 2009, but it can trace its origin to the Institute of Social Sciences at Huaqiao University, which was established in 1993. Currently the school offers programs in sociology at baccalaureate level and programs in all branches of philosophy at baccalaureate, master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral levels. The School also has several bases, including the Center for Philosophy of Life, which is a base for social science in Fujian province, and the Center for the Study of Religion in Fujian, Taiwan, and Overseas Chinese Communities, which is a base for humanities and social sciences in the college system of Fujian province. Besides these, the International Confucian Institute of Huaqiao University, which was co-founded by Huaqiao University and the China Confucius Foundation, is also affiliated with our School. There are two departments in our school, the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Sociology.
The guiding principle of our School is promoting the development of academic study and pursuing excellence. The discipline of philosophy is one of our university’s dominant disciplines whose development is vigorously supported by Huaqiao University, and it has been confirmed as a key discipline at all levels from the State Council to the provincial government. Philosophy was confirmed as a key discipline by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council in 2002 and by the government of Fujian Province in 2005, and it was confirmed as one of the double-first disciplines of Fujian Province in 2018. The Department of Philosophy qualified to provide PhD programs in Marxist Philosophy in 2006, master’s degrees in all branches of philosophy in 2010, post-doctoral programs in all fields of philosophy in 2013, and doctoral degrees in all areas of philosophy in 2018. Apart from philosophy, sociology is also now a discipline being cultivated at Huaqiao University, having been founded in 2009.
The School has forty-one faculty members, of whom thirty-six are professors: nineteen are full professors, eleven are associate professors, and six are assistant professors. Thirty-two faculty members received PhDs from the most prestigious universities in China, including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Fudan University, Renmin University of China, Sun Yat-sen University, Nanjing University and Nankai University; and several of them have studied abroad in the US, Germany, and Canada. In addition, several international faculties have worked in our School, and our current international faculty members include Professor Kevin Lynch, who received his PhD from the University of Warwick.
With the principles of humanity, virtue, and ability, and with an emphasis on training through reading of the Classics and development of comprehensive capacities, the school aims to help students to become promising practitioners in philosophy and sociology. In recent years, students in our school have been awarded academic prizes at national and provincial levels.
In the last five years, our faculty members have conducted more than ninety research projects that were supported by seven million RMB of government funding. The outcomes of these researches have been fruitful, and as a result, three hundred papers have been published in top academic journals in China, and more than twenty in international journals (SSCI and A&HCI). Besides this, twenty-three monologues have been published. Fifty of these research projects received awards.
The School is devoted to promoting its internationalization. The School invites renowned domestic and international experts and scholars to give lectures every year. So far we have established long term collaborations with prestigious universities in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, and Malaysia. In particular, the School is committed to encouraging teachers and students to do research work abroad. In collaboration with universities in Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, the School also offers an M.A. program in Chinese Studies for international students.
The School offers various resources which are designed to be used by faculty members and students. Specifically, it has tens of thousands of books, about sixty-five journals, and a laboratory for sociology.
Based on its existing academic platform, the School of Philosophy and Social Development aims at catching up with departments of philosophy and sociology in top universities both in China and across the wider world, keeping its mind open, and recruiting talented faculty members so as to make the Department of Philosophy a key center for philosophy in Southeast China and the Department of Sociology a special platform for outstanding teaching and research.
Dec. 12th 2021
