In the autumn of September, fruitful results have been achieved. On September 16th, NENU held a grand welcome ceremony for the 2022 students on the track-and-field ground of Ziyou campus. 3860 undergraduates and 4987 postgraduates of the 2022 grade participated in the ceremony on the spot or online.
Present at the ceremony were Yang Xiaohui, Party Secretary of NENU; Liu Yichun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and President of NENU;Han Xiaofeng, Liaison Officer of the Ministry of Education Party Construction at Northeast Normal University and former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Jilin University; Wang Yan, Deputy Party Secretary; Ma Xiaoyan, Deputy Party Secretary and Vice President; Han Dongyu, Guo Jianhua, Vice Presidents; Lan Hengbin, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Secretary of the Disciplinary Committee; Chang Qing, Vice President; Bai Weichun, member of the Party Committee Standing Committee, and Director of the Party Committee Organization Department; Yan Weigang, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Director of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee; Ai Chunming, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Director of the United Front Work Department of the Party Committee, and main persons in charge of the Party and government of each school (department), student work and counselors. The ceremony was presided over by Xue Lifeng, Assistant to the President and Director of the School Office.
After the solemn flag-raising ceremony, on behalf of NENU, Liu Yichun first gave a speech. He extended his heartfelt congratulations and warm welcome to the 2022 freshmen. He said that Northeast Normal University is a sacred institution that strives to educate people and rejuvenate the country. Over the past 76 years, generations of NENUers have adhered to the school motto of “diligence and innovation, and live up to the name of teacher”, diligently pursued and worked hard, and made important contributions to the prosperity of the country and the rejuvenation of the nation. Liu Yichun said that strengthening the teacher’s ability to serve the country is the spiritual background of all NENUers. As the first comprehensive university founded by the Communist Party of China in Northeast China, the school has always insisted on “taking the needs of the Party and the country as the path for running a school”. No matter how the times change, the mission of NENU’s talent training has not changed, and the responsibility of strengthening teachers to serve the country has not changed. The students should cherish the greatness of the country, forge ahead with diligence, and carry forward NENU’s spirit of serving the country. He pointed out that seeking truth and creativity is the common pursuit of NENUers in the new era. Today’s Northeast Normal University is developing with vigor and rapidity. This year, in the country’s new round of “Double First-Class” construction, six disciplines of the school’s Marxist theory, pedagogy, world history, chemistry, statistics, materials science and engineering were selected as “first-class construction disciplines”. Facing the future, NENU will continue to move towards the goal of building a world-class normal university under the guidance of the concept of “respectful education, creative education”.
Liu Yichun emphasized that university study is to shape the soul and life, shape the spirit of responsibility and creativity, and make the world a better place. To change the world, you must first change yourself. He put forward three hopes to the students on how to change themselves through learning: First, to change yourselves, you should start from independent learning. At present, we are in an era of knowledge explosion, where all kinds of new knowledge and new technologies are changing with each passing day. The future society is not only a competition of knowledge, but also a competition of learning ability. To this end, NENU puts forward the concept of “creative education”, whose fundamental purpose is to cultivate students’ thinking habits of criticism and reflection, induction and summary, and to transform “knowledge form” into “problem form” and “method form” in active inquiry and to cultivate independent thinking ability, and then improve independent learning ability. Second, to change yourself, you should start from seeking truth and learning. Oneimportant value of university education lies in seeking truth, respecting differences, daring to question, and learning from differences. Hope that everyone dares to break the tradition, to challenge the authority, “do not only rely on books, on authority, and on teachers”, and achieve a better self on the course of seeking truth. Third, to change oneself, you should start from peer learning. This pandemic has taught us that no one is an island and we must rely on each other to overcome challenges. NENU has always advocated that students learn from each other, inspire each other, and grow together. Learning from each other and making progress together will have a positive effect on personal growth. Hope that everyone will inherit and carry forward the fine tradition of NENU, light the enthusiasm for learning in an atmosphere of mutual learning of teachers and students, stimulate the spark of scientific research and innovation in cooperative exploration and collision of ideas, and gain friendship and grow together in the practice of mutual support and complement. He encouraged everyone to serve the country, foster moral cultivation, enhance learning skills, start from changing themselves, and from now on, run out of the best results in the youth track.
At the ceremony, Professor Zhou Dandan, a teacher representative and Dean of the School of Environment, Zhao Zhonglu, a student representative, a 2021 doctoral student of the School of Politics and Law, Liu Zixuan, a freshman representative, a 2022 undergraduate student of the School of Chemistry, and Su Butai, an international student representative, a 2022 graduate student of the School of Psychology gavespeeches respectively.
Finally, the ceremony ended with the singing of the school song by all the teachers and students of NENU. The school streamlined the ceremony through the Sunshine Cloud live broadcast platform, and teachers and students who were not on the spot expressed their blessings to the freshmen and hopes for the university life through the live broadcast platform.
(From News Center, translated by Wei Jia, revised by Liu Lixin)