Shangqiu Normal University

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Grade two English department students prepare for a debate against the History department, Spring 2005.

Shangqiu Normal University (Chinese: 商丘师范学院), formerly known as Shangqiu Teachers' College, is a small public university in the city of Shangqiu, in Henan Province of China.

The institution has a student population of about 12,000 students, and is divided into two campuses: Lao Qu, the Old Campus, and Xin Qu, the New Campus. The Old Campus is about 100 years old and houses the University's technical and science related majors: mathematics, computer science, etc. The New Campus, which is finishing construction at the time of this writing, lies less than 1 km away; it houses the University's liberal arts: English, History, Music, etc. Over the next few years, the University plans to acquire land from a military training center on its western boundary, further increasing its size and eventually classifying it as a full-fledged University.

Students at SQNU study on two educational tracks: a four-year, University track; and a three-year, junior college track. Students of the University come from provinces throughout China, although the majority are natives of Henan province.

Students study outside during finals week.

The Foreign Language department, nominally known as the English department, has about 2,000 students who study English as their first language and Japanese as their secondary language. For the past ten years the University has employed foreigners as English teachers from countries such as the United States and Australia.

SQNU differs from western universities in that its students do not change classrooms for different courses. Instead, each 'grade' (Grade One, for example, being the equivalent of college freshmen) is divided about five classes of 30-50 students each. Classmates remain in their rooms for all of their classes, while the teachers rotate from classroom to classroom.