Introduction

Xiamen University was founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, the well-known patriotic overseas Chinese leader. It was the first university in China founded by an overseas Chinese. At present it is the only key comprehensive university directly affiliated with the Education Ministry in any of the five special economic zones and is one of China's higher-level universities designated for the state key construction of the “211 Project” and the “985 Project”.

Over the past eighty - four years, as the result of painstaking efforts by several generations of faculty and graduates inspired by the school motto: Pursue Excellence, Strive for Perfection, Xiamen University has accumulated rich experience in offering its educational programs. The university presents its features as a university "in the Special Economic Zone on the coast near Taiwan and with close ties with overseas Chinese." Following its fine tradition of "loving the motherland and the university", it has enjoyed a fine reputation both at home and abroad. Since its founding 84 years ago, over 140,000 students have graduated from the university, and over 50 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) have studied or worked at Xiamen University.

With its 18 schools containing 45 departments and a group of research institutes, Xiamen University , has become a comprehensive university providing a fairly complete range of programs of education in humanities, social science, natural science, engineering and technology, management, art education, and medical science. Recently, the university has offered 70 undergraduate programs, 165 graduate programs, of which 6 are professional masters programs, and 100 Ph.D. programs, in addition to post-doctoral research centers set up in 12 first-class disciplines.

Xiamen university has over 4,900 staff, including 2,061 full-time faculty and professional researchers, 17 whom are academicians of CAS and CAE (8 academicians of CAS, 1 academician of CAE, and 8 adjunct academicians). Moreover, 7 faculty members of Xiamen University are seated on the State Council's Academic Degree Appraisal Committee. Among the full-time teachers and researchers, there are 1,252 professors and associate professors, including 337 doctoral supervisors, accounting for 60.4% of the total, 820 holding a Ph.D. degree, accounting for 41.7% of the total, and 786 returned scholars from overseas, accounting for 38.1% of the total.

Xiamen University is now making great strides towards its goal of "building a high-level university well-known both at home and abroad."

(Source: Xiamen University)