Toweringly standing in the East, NENU was rooted in Yan'an. On October 25, 1945, Chairman Mao Zedong received the key leaders of Yan'an University and requested the university to extend itself to the northeast and establish a "new type of Northeast University." In February 1946, Northeast University was founded in Benxi, Liaoning Province, becoming the first comprehensive university established by the Communist Party in the northeast region. In July 1949, it was relocated to Changchun, Jilin Province, and renamed Northeast Normal University in April 1950. In September 1996, NENU became one of the earliest universities given priority in construction in the "211 Project". In June 2004, the graduate school was established with the approval of the Ministry of Education. In 2007, it was selected as a national "985 Project Innovation Platform for the Advantageous Discipline of Teacher Education”. In September 2017, NENU became part of the Double First-Class Initiative.

Operating on two campuses, the university offers a comprehensive range of disciplines. NENU currently has over 15,000 full-time undergraduate students, more than 15,000 master students, over 3,000 doctoral students, and around 700 international students. There are over 1,700 full-time teachers, including 560 professors and 657 associate professors. The university comprises 21 schools and faculties, covering 12 disciplinary categories, with 72 undergraduate majors. NENU has 46 majors selected as national first-class undergraduate major construction programs and 3 bases for the Ministry of Education's national training program 2.0 for top students in basic disciplines. There are 24 doctoral programs of the first-level disciplines, 6 doctoral programs of professional degrees, 35 master programs of the first-level disciplines and 25 master programs of professional degrees. There are 24 post-doctoral research stations. NENU has six national "Double First-Class" disciplines, including marxism, education, world history, chemistry, statistics, and materials science and engineering, ranking 19th nationally. NENU also has five national key disciplines in ideological and political education, principles of education, world history, cell biology, and ecology. In the fourth round of discipline evaluation by the Degree Center of the Ministry of Education, six disciplines were rated as Class A (including one A+), and 15 as Class B. 

With distinctive characteristics and remarkable achievements, NENU places education and teaching as its foundation. Over the past 70 years, it has developed a distinct characteristic of "serving basic education" and is known as the "cradle of the people's teachers." In the 1950s, Cheng Fangwu, renowned educator and former president of the university, proposed the educational ideology of serving primary and secondary education, pioneering China's higher teacher correspondence education. In the 1980s, NENU actively served rural basic education, establishing the acclaimed "Changbai Mountain Road." In the 1990s, NENU implemented the "Excellent Educator Project" to cultivate outstanding teachers for basic education. In the new century, NENU initiated the "Educator Training Project" and explored "A New Model of U-G-S Teacher Education," establishing the only national co-constructed and collaboratively innovated center for teacher education. The "Educator Training Project" and the "A New Model of U-G-S Teacher Education" have won the First Prize of National Higher Education Teaching Achievement. The National Basic Education Experimental Center, the National Training Center for Kindergarten Principals of the Ministry of Education , and the Northeast Teacher Training Center for the Institutions of Higher Learning of the Ministry of Education are located at NENU.

As a research-intensive university, NENU has achieved fruitful results in scientific research. The university has 18 national-level and ministerial-level scientific and technological innovation platforms, including national engineering laboratories, national field scientific observation and research stations, national-local joint engineering laboratories, national applied mathematics centers, national international joint research centers, key laboratories of the Ministry of Education and the Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education. NENU has ten ministerial-level humanities and social science research platforms, such as the key research base for humanities and social sciences of the Ministry of Education and the research center for international and regional studies of the Ministry of Education. In recent years, its research results have won four second prizes of the National Natural Science Award, including two in the field of material science, one in statistics, and one in chemistry. It has also won six first prizes in the seventh, eighth and ninth rounds of the Outstanding Achievements Award for Scientific Research in Higher Education (Humanities and Social Sciences), including four in the field of history,one in the field of Marxist theory and one in the field of education.

The university is committed to open education and has established cooperative relationships with 275 universities and research institutions in over 30 countries and regions, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia. NENU has six Overseas Expertise Introduction Centers for Discipline Innovation and four Confucius Institutes. It has cooperated with Rutgers University in the United States to establish Northeast Normal University-Rutgers Newark Institute and has led 12 universities in China and Mongolia to establish the "Association of Universities of China and Mongolia." The departments of the central government such as the State Council's Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have established the "International Chinese Language Teachers Training Base," the "Chinese Culture Education Base," the "Education Aid Base," and the "China-ASEAN Education Training Center" at NENU. The China-Japan joint government-funded preparatory school for Chinese students to Japan, located at NENU, is an important base for serving the national talent training strategy and promoting the cultural exchanges between the two countries.

The university has a galaxy of experts and scholars well-known both at home and abroad. Poet Gong Mu (Zhang Songru), the lyricist of the "Chinese People's Liberation Army," writers Xiao Jun and Wu Boxiao, literary historian Yang Gongji, linguist Sun Changxu, historians Li Xun, Ding Zemin, and Lin Zhichun, educationist Chen Yuanhui, musicians Ma Ke and Lv Ji, pathologist Bai Xiqing, mathematician Zhang Dexin, nuclear physicist Wang Lin, geographer Ding Xizhi, ornithologist Fu Tongsheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and biologist Hao Shui, one of the founders of school physical education in New China Yang Zhongxiu, and the choreographer and artist of Grand Group Calisthenics Yang Ruixue, and Marxist theorist Zheng Derong have all worked here. Over the past 70 years, the university has inherited the red gene, promoted the spirit of NENU "building a stronger teacher force for the country, seeking truth and fostering creativity”, and has cultivated more than 300,000 graduates at all fields and at all levels, producing a large number of outstanding talents in the field of education. Among them, a significant number of outstanding individuals have emerged in the field of education. Notable examples include Lu Jiaxi, a teacher from Baotou No. 9 Middle School, who solved a world-renowned mathematical problem and was honored with the National Natural Science First Prize. Other notable figures include Feng Zhiyuan, a touching educator on China's border regions, Guo Lihua, a national exemplary teacher, Shi Ningzhong, Gao Hang and Dou Guimei, role models in the national education sector, and Ma Xianhua, one of the nation's top ten outstanding teachers. These individuals have made significant contributions and have been recognized for their excellence in various aspects of education. It has also cultivated a variety of talents represented the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences such as ecologist Zheng Guangmei, geographer Liu Xingtu, physicist Sun Changpu and optoelectronic functional materials scientist Liu Yichun, and writer Zhang Xiaotian. The “four solid virtues” of NENUers, to be specific, firm beliefs, solid knowledge, down-to-earth personalities, and steadfast work ethics are widely acknowledged in society.

Continuing the tradition while forging ahead, the university is ready for the new era, new mission, and new journey. Northeast Normal University will always take the needs of the Party and the country as the first choice for running the university, implement the philosophy of "education of respect,  education of creativity," and carry out the fundamental task of cultivating morality and fostering people. It will deepen the high-quality development, strive to shoulder new responsibilities in the construction of a first-class university and innovation-oriented country, achieve new breakthroughs in constructing a high-quality teacher education system, and take new actions to train more outstanding teachers and future educators for the country. It will work hard to write a new chapter in the construction of a world-class normal university with Chinese characteristics.