Since the National Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center for Civil Engineering of Fuzhou University was approved as a national experimental teaching demonstration center (development organization) (hereinafter referred to as the "Center") in 2009, it has conscientiously implemented the "people-oriented" education policy, stepped up the pace of experimental teaching reform and laboratory construction, significantly improved the school-running level and teaching quality of the College of Civil Engineering, and greatly enhanced the cultivation of students' comprehensive quality and ability.
At present, there are 60 members in the experimental teaching team, 32 of whom are full-time teachers, including 2 with senior titles, 12 with vice-senior titles, 15 with intermediate titles, and 3 with junior titles. There are 28 part-time teachers, including 14 professors, 6 associate professors, 1 senior engineer and 7 lecturers. During the construction period, one person of the Center won the title of "Minjiang Scholar", one was selected as the first batch of outstanding talents in Fujian Province, one was awarded the Outstanding Youth Fund of Fujian Province, and one was honored as a provincial famous teacher. After construction, the Center has established a high quality experimental teaching team.
The total value of the existing instruments and equipment in the Center is CNY 73.07 million, and the new large-scale, advanced experimental systems include a triple seismic simulators system and a 2,000-ton compression and shear system (completed at the end of 2012). During the construction period, the Center has independently made and transformed several advanced experimental equipment and achieved remarkable results in the civil engineering experimental teaching reform and teaching research, among which the independently-made "new cement-based material crack resistance tester" has been promoted to Guangxi University and other universities.
The Center is further committed to improving the "three-level, three-platform, three-base" experimental teaching system and experimental teaching management system. The Center organically integrates theoretical teaching with experimental teaching with a series of new experimental courses such as "Traffic System Analysis", "Road Engineering Material Experiment", and "Hydraulic Model Experiment". It realized an average annual number of experimental hours of 165,240, and has served 3,480 students annually on average. The teaching equipment, teaching content, teaching means and teaching functions of the Center are constantly updated and expanded.
During the construction period, students have won 6 national competition awards and 17 provincial awards. The Center has held 10 discipline competitions, in which more than 1,600 students participated. The Center focuses on cultivating students' innovation, practical, and teamwork abilities. During the construction period, the Center has supported students to carry out a total of 120 university student innovation experiment projects at national, provincial and university levels or set up by the Center, among which 57 projects have been carried out through three sessions of IRP (Innovation Experiment Research Program in Civil Engineering) (set up by the Center). The IRP projects have provided a platform for cultivating students' scientific thinking and innovative awareness, exercised their independent learning ability and experimental ability, and acquainted them with the process of scientific research to lay the foundation for their further study.
Through the construction, the demonstration radiation function of the Center becomes more prominent. In recent years, the Center has received a large number of visits and exchanges from higher education institutions inside and outside the Province, such as Southeast University, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Hunan University of Science and Technology, and Kunming University. Meanwhile, it has also carried out in-depth and lasting exchanges and cooperation with National Quemoy University (Chinese Taiwan) in terms of undergraduate ability training. The IRP projects carried out by the Center involve neighboring colleges and universities, which has promoted the experimental teaching reform process of surrounding sister colleges and universities, and contributed to the cultivation of outstanding talents urgently needed for economic construction in the Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone.
During the construction period, the Center hosted 12 national and international academic conferences. It has established extensive cooperation and exchange relations with famous universities in the United States, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong SAR, Chinese Taiwan, Singapore, Europe and other countries and regions, and sent young teachers to Chinese Taiwan for academic exchanges.
