Department of Social Sciences Visits Our School

for Research Meeting

January 16, 2024

On the morning of January 12, 2024, a delegation from the Department of Social Sciences of Central South University, led by Director Mao Junxiang, along with Deputy Director Luo Yingzi, staff members Luo Mengliang, and Yin Haibao, visited our School for a research meeting. The meeting was attended by Party Secretary Li Tao, Dean Yang Wendi, Associate Deans Fan Wuqiu and Zhong Wenming, Professors Wu Lingying and Su Yi, research assistant Feng Shuyuan, and discipline assistant Wang Yu. Secretary Li Tao presided over the meeting.

Secretary Li Tao extended a warm welcome to the visiting leaders and faculty, expressing gratitude for the university’s support for the humanities and social sciences. Dean Yang Wendi provided an overview of the School, covering its teaching and research units, program development, talent cultivation objectives, faculty composition, and educational environment. He highlighted the School’s disciplinary positioning and goals, strengths and weaknesses, and priority areas for future development.

Participants outlined five strategic priorities based on the meeting agenda:

1) Faculty structure optimization: Participants noted the need to rebalance faculty ranks, age distribution, and gender representation. They proposed tailoring recruitment benchmarks for leading scholars and doctoral supervisors to the distinct characteristics of humanities and social science disciplines.

2) Disciplinary development strategy: The School aims to leverage its traditional strengths while fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, striking a balance between foundational scholarship and innovative inquiry.

3) Platform development: The School serves as the host institution for a national academic association and publishes the journal Foreign Language and Translation. These strategic assets are vital to disciplinary visibility, and the School respectfully seeks the university’s continued guidance and support in nurturing these platforms.

4) Faculty evaluation reform: Acknowledging the distinct research cycles, methodological diversity, and publication timelines inherent to social sciences, participants called for more nuanced, context-sensitive, and diversified evaluation metrics.

5) Institutional support: The School appeals for enhanced backing in policy incentives, grant application facilitation, and research infrastructure provisioning.

Director Mao Junxiang noted that the School of Foreign Languages boasts a distinguished disciplinary history and robust academic infrastructure, and should capitalize on emerging opportunities to achieve transformative growth. He offered four key recommendations: leverage the School's linguistic strengths to advance area studies aligned with national strategic priorities; expand applications for National Social Science Foundation funding; integrate curriculum development with related disciplines across the university to enhance the interdisciplinary character of undergraduate English education; and increase multi-channel investment in the School’s journal to secure its inclusion in major indexing databases at an early date. Deputy Director Luo Yingzi outlined incentive policies for major research projects and platforms, reviewed recent significant achievements, and discussed preparations for the annual National Social Science Foundation application mobilization meeting.

Secretary Li Tao and Dean Yang Wendi thanked university leadership for its support of the social sciences. They emphasized that the session offered a crucial opportunity to evaluate the School’s current position, establish rigorous evaluation standards, and clarify future directions. The School looks forward to deepening its contribution to humanities and social science research at CSU.