South-Central Minzu University  is a comprehensive university directly under the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. Located on the shore of the South Lake in Wuhan, home to the “White Clouds and Yellow Cranes”, it is also an institution of higher learning jointly built by the State Ethnics Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Education, provincial government in Hubei and municipal government in Wuhan city. Founded in 1951, SCMZU is one of the earliest universities for nationalities established since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Since its establishment, SCMZU has been unwavering in following the socialist path of education and implementing the Party’s policies on education and ethnic affairs. It has achieved rapid and overall development by focusing on forging a sense of the Chinese national community and taking morality and virtue education as the cornerstone.

The university covers a ground area of 1,550 mu and boasts a building area of more than one million square meters. It has a beautiful campus where leafy trees abound and flowers give out fragrances all year around; the campus also features tidily arranged modern buildings with ethnic characteristics. Here the landscape and cultural attractions complement each other, making the campus an ideal place for teaching/learning, scientific research, and living.   

The university has laid down a solid foundation for education. Currently it has 29,000 students from all 56 ethnic groups in China, including full-time preparatory students, undergraduates, master’s students, and doctorate students. It has four doctoral programs of first-level disciplines; 25 academic master programs of first-level disciplines, and 20 professional master programs. It has 82 undergraduate programs, covering 10 major disciplines. It has 34 designated first-class undergraduate programs (14 of which are national programs). With its environmental engineering program obtaining the professional certification for engineering education, the university has been granted four national “new engineering” programs, five “new agricultural” programs, and four “new humanities” programs. It has nine national first-class undergraduate courses and two ministerial-level ideological and political theory demonstration courses. In January 2018, the university was listed in the “Universities to Be Developed as National First-Class Institutions of Higher Learning” in Hubei Province, with its three disciplines of ethnology, chemistry, and pharmaceutical sciences recognized as “national first-class discipline development programs”. In 2017, its discipline of ethnology was approved as an A-category discipline in the discipline appraisal by the Ministry of Education; its three disciplines of chemistry, engineering, and material science were placed among the top 1% on the ESI rankings. It has a faculty and staff of more than 1,400, while 58% of the full-time teachers are PhDs. Having a team of Huang Danian-type teachers, who are with high-quality and innovation-driven professionals, it has brought in and cultivated a bunch of top talents such as the “national outstanding youths”, “national excellent youths”, and teachers included in the national “10,000 talent initiative”. During the 13th Five-year Plan period, it was granted 291 national scientific research projects, 36 of which are major projects; it had 761 CSSCI papers published and 131 of them by authoritative journals such as Social Sciences in China; it had 1,372 SCI papers published, with 279 in the top section; it had 245 high-level academic monographs published, was granted 271 invention patents, and won 123 provincial/ministerial-level prizes and awards; it specified one international standard for mugwort, a Chinese medicinal herb; its Institute of Hubei Comprehensive Moderately Prosperous Society Development was accepted into the China core think tank for the year 2017, while it completed its “National Tech Enterprise Incubator” and its national demonstration base for national “Internet + Chinese Civilization”. The university was ranked 86th  in terms of quantities of published CSSCI papers in 2019; its natural index was ranked at 124th place in 2020; the humanity and social science edition and natural sciences edition of its journal were both listed as A class for the RCCSE China Core Academic Journal.

The influence of the university has kept increasing over time. In 2012, it was designated as a national demonstration center for teacher development; in 2001, 2006, and 2016 respectively, it obtained top grades in the appraisal of the undergraduate education level by the Ministry of Education. In August 2017, it was honored as “National Demonstration University for deepening reform in innovation-driven and entrepreneurship-oriented Education”. In September 2017, its achievements in talent development were selected into the major exhibition of achievements “Five Years of Sheer Endeavor”. For the past 70 years, it has accumulatively produced more than 150,000 high-level talents. In recent years, the university undertakes the compilation of the 13th Five-Year Plan for the development of ethnic groups with small populations; making use of its advantages in scientific research, it built multiple industrial development platforms for minority regions; it promoted “Ten Important Projects”, that is, the appointment of liaison officer in Mount Wuling area dispatched by State Ethnic Affairs Commission;“1221”targeted poverty alleviation program; village-stationed poverty alleviation working team; ”616” Changyang County-specific Support; Three Gorges Reservoir Area Migration Project-specific support; specific assistance for basic education in Enshi City; PhD service corps; “three 10,000” projects, which are rural development activities carried out by Hubei Provincial Committee of CPC and Hubei provincial government; deputy chief of county in charge of science and technology; support plan for developing high-quality grassroots-level talents. It dispatched a total of 144 cadres and teachers for these efforts and invested more than RMB50 million in various special poverty-alleviation funds. It has entered into strategic partnership agreements with Enshi Prefecture, Tongren City, Zhangjiajie City, Xiangxi Prefecture, Huaihua City, and Qianxinan Prefecture. It has made great efforts to carry out deep cooperation with the Mount Wuling area, Bairin Right Banner, Debao County, Le’an County, and others in terms of talent development, think tank service, scientific research and the commercialization of research achievements, cultural promotion, and the expansion of farm products sales channels. It established relationships of exchanges and cooperation with more than 50 universities overseas, while having deep cooperation with dozens of domestic universities such as Wuhan University and Chongqing University by a way of joint development, exchanges, and mutual visits. 

The university has made impressive achievements in morality and virtue education for its students. It has studied and implemented the key message of the Party’s 19th national congress and consistently implemented the key messages of the CCP Central Committee ethnic work meeting, national ethnic unity and progress award-presenting conference, national conference on ideological and political work in universities, national educational conference, and so forth. Centered on the theme of “Chinese Nation as Family, Working in Unison Toward Chinese Dream”, it has worked hard on education in “Five Identities”, thus winning such honors as “Exemplary Institution for National Unity and Progress”, “Exemplary Group for National Unity and Progress”, and “Demonstration University for Building Activities of National Unity and Progress Across China”. For many times its CPC Committee has been honored as “Exemplary Institution in Party Building Work”, “Exemplary Party Committee Central Team”, and “Exemplary Grassroots Party Cell” by the CPC Committee of Hubei Province. For 19 consecutive years, it has been honored as the Most Civilized Institution of Hubei Province; for many years in a row, it has won the university campus cultural promotion achievement from the Ministry of Education and Hubei Provincial Department of Education; from it came a large number of excellent teachers and students, who have earned honors such as “National Exemplary Teacher”, “National Role Model in Morality and Virtue as Teacher”, “Top Ten Head Teacher of Hubei Province”, “Chinese University Student of the Year”, and “Chinese University Student Self-reliance Star”.

In this new era, let us embark on a new journey. Guided by Xi Jinping’s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new age, the university will seriously study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important thought on strengthening and improving work involving ethnic affairs and his important views on educations. Seizing the opportunities available at this new stage of development, it will practice the new development philosophy. It will get aligned to the state’s strategy and serve local socioeconomic development. It will focus on forging a sense of the Chinese national community and take morality and virtue education as the cornerstone; by meeting the “Four Services” educational requirements, it will make great efforts to implement the strategy of “Built on Quality, Prospering from Disciplines, Strengthened through Talents, Honored for Characteristics”. And it will do its best to grow into one of China’s first-class universities to the satisfaction of the Chinese people, fostering constructors and successors for the cause of Chinese style socialism who are developed morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically.

(Updated in November 2021)