On May 26th and 27th, the Workshop on Graduate Education in Building World-Class Universities was held by Graduate School, Xiamen University as a response to the gist of Vice Premier Liu Yandong's speech about the promotion of establishing first-class universities and disciplines and the development of a first-class graduate education system at the Session of National Graduate Education Quality and the 31st Meeting Of Degree Committee of the State Council. The workshop was also one of the serial activities held in celebration of the 95th anniversary of the foundation of XMU, the 90th year of beginning to provide graduate education as well as the 30th year of the establishment of School of Graduate, and aiming to fasten the development of XMU as a first-class university in the world with a first-class graduate education system (the double first-class development). Vice President of XMU Wu Daguang was present at the opening ceremony; deans of Graduate School and delegates of 18 high-level universities from 8 countries and areas attended the workshop. They deeply discussed the role and responsibility of graduate education in globalization, exchanged opinions of what it would mean to the development of first-class universities through improving graduate education quality during this new era and how to achieve the goal, and attempted to promote far-reaching cooperation and mutual improvement between XMU and high-level universities home and abroad in terms of degree and graduate education.

In the opening ceremony, Vice President Wu Daguang expressed welcome to the arrival of all the deans on behalf of XMU and thanked the universities that had been concerning and supporting XMU. He pointed out that currently graduate education had become an essential part for the development of universities, in particular the research-oriented ones. To become a first-class research-oriented university in the world was the ultimate goal to be achieved by the centenary of the People's Republic of China, one of the two centenarian goals of XMU. Though the globalization of world economy and education demanded more, XMU remained sticking to international cooperation, putting great emphasis on the internationalization of graduate education, and actively seeking for academic communication and collaborative education with renowned universities overseas. Next, Mr. Wu centered on introducing the reform of education program for academic graduates in the last 3 years, especially on the reform of courses. The amount of graduate courses in XMU had decreased almost half of the original 4000 as requested by the rule of graduate education and courses’ effect. Mr. Wu expected more original ideas in developing modes for graduate education by the Seminar and expressed his hope and confidence that graduate education of XMU would turn to be a first-class one in the world.

In the Seminar, from their own experiences and measures in graduate education, deans and delegates from McGill University (Canada), University of Cincinnati (USA), Macquarie University (Australia), Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Cardiff University (UK), National University of Singapore, the University of Hong Kong, Xinzhu Chiao Tung University (Xinzhu, Taiwan), Taiwan Central University (Taiwan), University of Macau, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, Wuhan University, and Xiamen University delivered keynote speech in terms of the standard and verification of setting interdisciplines, forming a first-class group of supervisors as well as the education and  assessment of outstanding innovative graduates. They discussed difficulties and challenges in the process and reached an agreement that the development of interdisciplines was a natural trend, the quality of the supervisor group affected graduate education decisively, and Graduate School should play a more active and more important part in improving graduate education.

Mr. Tao Tao, Executive Dean of Graduate School of XMU, delivered the closing address on behalf of Graduate School. He reviewed the reports given during the last one and a half days and sincerely thanked all the deans and delegates present. Centering on the theme of graduate education and first-class university establishment, Mr. Tao said, the delegates exchanged sufficient and provoking ideas and also proposed exciting points. As it was said in an ancient Chinese saying “Jiao Bu Wei Qing” (to be more intimate by frequent visit), universities attending the workshop had either known each other better or formed new relationships. Moreover, the workshop also worked as an opportunity for the graduate education of XMU. Through communication with other high-level universities both from home and abroad, administrative staff of graduate education in XMU were able to acquire knowledge of the measures and spirits of first-class universities in the world; meanwhile, they took the chance to further reform the graduate education mode and improve the quality of graduate education by reflecting the deficiency and learning from excellent experiences. As the world was diverse and open, no university could hold to itself. Besides, the universities invited in the workshop all had cooperation with XMU in graduate education; since every university had its own advantages and disadvantages, only in cooperation could XMU and all the other universities make continuous improvement. Mr. Tao expected to strengthen cooperation with other universities to deeper and more extensive aspects, achieving mutual development through cooperation. In the end, Mr. Tao also suggested to host the workshop in another form — regularly or irregularly in every university in the future, laying sound foundation for multilateral cooperation in higher level and deeper areas.

During the workshop, the delegates enjoyed the special performance organized by the School of Arts in XMU and thought highly of it. They also took a visit of both Siming campus and Xiang’an campus, and complemented XMU’s gorgeous environment of the two campuses and the academic atmosphere brought by it.

XMU started graduate education in 1926 and was one of the earliest in China to educate graduates. After the foundation of People’s Republic of China, XMU renewed enrollment of graduates in 1950 and set up the department of graduates in 1952, as required by the development of socialism in China and higher education. From 1950 to 1965, XMU had enrolled a total of 110 graduated in 22 majors. It brought new opportunities to XMU’s graduate education when all universities in China renewed graduate enrollment in 1978 and particularly when degree system was implemented in 1981. In September 1986, approved by the State Council, XMU tried to initiate School of Graduate (officially established in March 1996), being one of the major universities to develop graduate education after the Reform and Opening-up. From 1978 to 2015, XMU had educated over 50,000 masters and doctors, and it was from XMU that the first doctor of higher education and the first female doctor of accounting graduated.

During the past few years, Graduate School greatly emphasized the internationalization of graduate education so as to fulfill the “double first-class goals”. By the end of December 2015, there were more than 600 graduates from over 90 foreign countries such as Thailand, America and Russia studying for master’s or doctor’s degree.  Meanwhile, Graduate School took the initiative to sign the agreement for collaborative education of doctors successively with 5 world-wide first-class universities like McGill University (Canada) from 2013.  Graduate School followed the rule of graduate education and continued deepening the research-oriented education system reform. From 2013 till now, there are 20 papers published on top international academic journals such as Science and Nature with graduates as first authors; 5 doctoral dissertations have been awarded the National Hundred Excellent Doctoral Dissertations of 2013, tying for the third with other universities.