Hunan University

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Hunan University
湖南大学

Motto:	实事求是敢为人先
Established:	976 AD
Type:	Public (state run)
President:	Zhong Zhihua (钟志华)
Faculty:	4,600
Students:	46,000
Location:	Changsha (长沙), Hunan, PRC
Website:	www.hunu.edu.cn

Hunan University (湖南大学), located in Changsha, Hunan, is one of the most important universities in the People's Republic of China. It traces its history back to the Yuelu Academy founded in the Song Dynasty, over 1,030 years ago (千年学府). It is arguable if this makes Hunan University the oldest university in the world since the original Yuelu Academy had no degree-granting mechanism, or other features of a Western university. Moreover, two North African universities predate Yuelu Academy. The Yuelu Academy was a venue for Chinese scholars and their students to meet and study deep issues very much like what Aristotle and his students did in ancient Greece.

Hunan University is among China's top universities in both education and research. Its Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Industrial Design, Software Engineering, and Business and International Trade programs are some of its strongest. The Chinese calligraph of Yuelu Academy was written by Emperor Zhenzong of Song in 1015, and the Chinese calligraph of Hunan University was written by Mao Zedong in 1950 as soon as the People's Republic of China was founded. Both events were considered as extremely prestigious in China.

For more than one thousand years, academic and educational activities have continued uninterrupted here. In the course of its development from Yuelu Academy to Hunan University, this time-honored institution has committed itself to fostering people of great talent for society and has produced large numbers of figures of outstanding scholarship. Among its prominent students are Wang Fuzhi, a celebrated philosopher in Chinese history; Wei Yuan, a reformist who first advocated the idea of learning from the West; Zeng Guofan, the first Chinese to initiate the Westernization Movement and to make arrangements for a modern factory in China; Zuo Zongtang, a national hero who arranged to build China’s first navy and took great pains to defend and develop Xinjiang; Guo Songtao, China’s first ambassador to a foreign country; Cai E, a major leader in defending the Republic of China; the first Chinese to set foot on the continent of Antarctica; and Ci Yungui, the chief designer of China's first super computer.