Founded in 1992, Qingdao Binhai University was approved by Chinese Ministry of Education as the first private vocational college in Shandong Province in 1999. In 2005, it was upgraded to be one of the first private undergraduate universities in Shandong Province. In 2009, it was accredited to award bachelor's degrees. The university consists of 15 faculties, including Fundamental Undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Science, Fundamental Vocational Faculty of Arts, Fundamental Vocational Faculty of Science, Faculty of Business, Faculty of Information and Engineering, Faulty of Electromechanical Engineering, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Faculty of International Cooperation, Faculty of Architectural Engineering, Faculty of Accountancy, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Art and Media, Faculty of Continuing Education, and Faculty of Teaching and Scientific Research on Ideological and Political Theories. It offers 34 specialties for undergraduates and 35 specialties for vocational students, which cover such disciplines as arts, science, engineering, administration, economics, art, medicine, education, etc. The university currently has more than 18,000 full-time students, over 100 of whom are overseas students.
Fresh ideas and pioneering work
Qingdao Binhai University is the first private university in Shandong Province since the foundation of PRC. For more than 20 years, it adheres to the educational mission by “Taking developing education to cultivate talents as its duty and running the university to benefit the nation and the people as its goal”. It persists in the education concepts of “Learning to be before learning to do,” and “Everyone is talented to gain in expertise and grow in wisdom.” It follows the principle of running the university “to benefit the students, the university (or teachers) and the society”. It advocates the work guidelines of “Strictness, Accuracy and Practicality”. The university commits itself to “cultivating modern citizens with noble morality, practical manners, special skills and creative mind”. It has passed the undergraduate teaching assessment by the Ministry of Education. The university was approved of the National-level Off-campus Practice Base for College Students Education and the Comprehensive Reform Pilot Project for Undergraduate Program by the Ministry of Education, and the Youth Science Fund Project by National Natural Science Foundation. The university is honored as the Provincial Private University with Characteristics, the Provincial Research Base of Moral Education for Private Universities, the National Model for Moral Education, the Provincial Civilized Campus, the Provincial Outstanding University of Moral Education, One of the Provincial Top Ten Social Rating Universities, One of the Provincial Top Ten Promising Universities for Employment, the Provincial Advanced University in Cooperation with Enterprises, the National Exemplary University for Employment, One of the National Top Ten Influential Private Universities, One of the National Top Ten Brands of Private Universities, the National Outstanding Private University of Higher Education, and the Pilot Reform University of Strategic Research on Universities of Applied Science approved by the Ministry of Education.
Sufficient facilities and superior conditions
Qingdao Binhai University is located in the center of New District of Qingdao, which is the international seaside tourist resort and the happiest city in China. It is about a 15-minute drive to Qingdao Railway Station. The university covers an area of 1,015 mu with a gross floor area of 510,000 square meters. The total assets are more than RMB 1200 million yuan and the total value of the teaching apparatus is over RMB 120 million yuan. There are two libraries, with 1.7 million paper books and 1.4 million (16TB) kinds of e-books, and there are 5132 seats in the reading rooms. The university has a group of multi-media and audio-visual classrooms with 12,722 seats, 6 academic lecture halls with 200 seats each, 1 auditorium with 1,600 seats, 13 experiment (practice) teaching centers and 6 campus practice bases of university-enterprise integrated entities. There are also 2 comprehensive playgrounds, 15 basketball courts, 3 tennis courts, 8 volleyball courts, 12 badminton courts, 1 indoor stadium, 1 natatorium with a 25m×50m swimming pool, and 1 body shaping room. The university has a 14,000-square-meter museum, including the Ceramic Hall, Chinese and Foreign Painting Hall, Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Hall, Root Carving Hall, Science Hall, History Hall of Binhai University, Educational History Hall, Space Hall and Animal Specimens and Art Hall. The museum is known as Qingdao Municipal Base for Eco-cultural Science Education, a Provincial Three-Star Science Base and a National AAA Scenic Spot. There are 4 man-made lakes around the campus: in spring willows sway around the lakes, in summer lotus bloom in the pond, in autumn osmanthus blossom with fragrance, and in winter frozen waterfalls hang high over the lakes. All year round, flowers such as winter jasmine, peony flowers, azaleas and cherry blossom with fragrance, making the campus spectacular and picturesque.
Qualified faculty and quality-oriented education
The university has been striving to cultivate high-quality teachers. Now it has 946 full-time teachers including 76 professors, 223 associate professors and 453 lecturers. Among them, 56 teachers have doctoral degrees and 598 have master degrees, accounting for 69.1% of the whole faculty. In addition, it has engaged 17 foreign experts. The university has been strengthening the construction of specialties and curricula and now it has 5 provincial characteristic specialties, 3 provincial private university preponderant and characteristic specialties, 2 municipal key construction subjects (specialty group), 2 municipal key vocational construction courses, 1 provincial exemplary center for experiment teaching, and 21 provincial top-quality courses.
Qingdao Binhai University has fostered 65 thousand qualified graduates, with its formal employment rate ranking top since 2009, and ranking No. 1 among 58 undergraduate universities in 2013, according to Shandong Department of Human Resources and Social Security. Three graduates from the university were awarded first among the Top Ten Student Entrepreneurs by Qingdao Municipal People’s Government in 2009 and other students made the list ever since. In 2005，The university was honored as One of the National Top 50 Universities in the Employment of University Graduates by Ministry of Education.
Implementing moral education and practicing multi-skills
Qingdao Binhai University puts the moral education first to cultivate the students and run the university. The experience and enlightenment of the moral education in the university has been reported by People’s Daily, Guangming Daily and CCTV respectively. The university has established Academic Credit System with all the students allowed to freely choose the specialties, the courses, the teachers, and the period of schooling they like. Anyone who has completed the required credits and achievements is allowed to graduate ahead of time. Up to now, a number of experiment teaching centers have been set up, such as College Physics Experiment Center, Electrotechnics & Electronics Experiment Center, Basic Polytechnique Experiment Center, Metallic Materials Experiment Center, Engineering Training Experiment Center, Economical Management Experiment Center, Mass Media Experiment Center, Information Technology Experiment Center, International Language & Culture Experiment Center, Medical Care Experiment Center, and Pre-school Education Experiment Center etc.. Teaching entities of university-research institute-industry have also been established, such as Electromechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Broadcast Television Media, Medical Care, Pre-school Education, E-Business, Tourism Management, Animation Art and etc. Qingdao Binhai University also attaches great importance to the students’ general education and humanistic education, and also stresses training students’ basic skills, such as speech training in Putonghua, computer operating, typing, office automation, English listening and speaking skills. All of the above training programs are the prerequisites for students’ graduation. In addition, the university has been approved by the Ministry of Education as the test center for CET-4, CET-6, TEM-4, TEM-8, and test center for Japanese Majors (band 4 and band 8), HSK, National Computer Rank Examination and National Mandarin (Putonghua) Promotion Test Station. The students can attend the tests to get relative certificates and licenses on campus. Qingdao Binhai University is entitled to the qualification authentication of startup incubators and has become the incubation base for students’ startups in Qingdao City.
Open education and convenient overseas study
Aiming at ranking among international universities, Qingdao Binhai University has established cooperative relationship with 120 universities and research institutions in over 30 countries and regions, including the US, Canada, Russia, Germany, France, the UK, Portugal, Peru, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, etc. It has also signed agreements with 42 universities abroad on exchanging teachers and students, such as University of the Incarnate Word in the US, St. Petersburg University in Russia, ICN Business School in France, University of Saskatchewan in Canada, Sapporo University in Japan, Andong National University in South Korea and others, which is accessible to students for their overseas study. The university requires that 100% students of Korean major and 60% of Japanese major have at-least half a year’s experience of studying abroad in order to internationalize their views. Some related undergraduate programs are offered here for international study, up to now totaling over 1,800 students sent to the US, Germany, Russia, South Korea, France, Japan and over 1,100 overseas students from France, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Hungary, Philippines, Hungary and Mongolia studying in Qingdao Binhai University.
Scholarships and financial aids
The students in the university may enjoy State Scholarship, State Ambition-encouraging Scholarship, State Grant and State Educational Loan. The students also have the chance to apply for the university scholarships, financial aids, and the enterprise scholarships. So far, altogether the funds from Educational Development Foundation of Qingdao Binhai University are totaling more than 70 million RMB yuan, of which 3 million RMB yuan is used for the tuition of excellent students. Meanwhile, part-time jobs are provided for those whose families live in poverty. By 2014, 20.596 million RMB yuan had been offered to help 5210 students, accounting for 28.9% of all, for which the university was awarded the Advanced Unit for Financial Aids of Universities in Shandong Province.
Vision of the university
Qingdao Binhai University has planned to develop itself into a famous one honored as “Private Tsinghua University” in three steps. The first one is to rank its comprehensive strength above the medium level among the undergraduate universities in Shandong Province, making it a feature-famous one in Shandong Province and a famous private one in China in 2022 at its 30th anniversary. The second step is to make it a first-class private university and a nation well-known university in 2042 at its 50th anniversary. And the last step is to become a top private university honored as “Private Tsinghua University” at its 100th anniversary.
