On April 20, 2016, a majority of supervisors and course lectures of postgraduate program, as well as the chief executive leaders of School of Foreign Languages (SFL), gathered in the Conference Room to identify the major problems and offer suggestions about how to improve the quality of postgraduate education.
To start with, Dr. Ma Qiang, the party secretary of SFL, outlined the development strategy of Southeast University and pointed out that the task of building a world class university with top tier disciplines has pushed the postgraduate education to the front stage, and in response, feasible plans must be made to ensure a high-quality program governance and control. After his introduction, the deputy party secretary Mr. Tang Dinghua, urged everyone present to join him in the care and guidance of the postgraduate students, particularly, the MTI students in Suzhou Campus so that they can face their graduation season with a positive attitude.
As the deputy dean in charge of the postgraduate program, Prof. Ma Dongmei reviewed the work in the previous semester, ranging from the admission test, thesis reviews, to the course satisfaction investigation and course adjustment, before she presented the plan for this semester which includes the drafting of several regulations. Based on her investigation results, Prof. Ma emphasized the importance of fostering the students’ research abilities and suggested a new course that will teach the students how to search the valuable resources and write the literature review in their first year. As to the reform of the admission test, Prof. Ma proposed a shift to the evaluation of the candidates’ translation abilities, language competence and writing skills in the test papers as well as the possibility of selecting the candidates on the basis of their scores for General English Test and Specialized Test for each division.
After Mr. Guo Qing, the director of MIT Center, briefed about the cooperation with some international organizations, companies and universities, which will play an important role in the enlargement of internship bases for the postgraduate students majoring in Translation and Interpreting, panel discussions were held to deliberate three regulation documents covering the governance and control of thesis writing and submission, the application requirements for academic conferences, and awards for the publication of high-quality essays.
The meeting was very fruitful, Prof. Chen Maihua, the dean of SFL affirmatively commented before it came to a successful close. She hoped that meeting together would bring out the collective wisdoms to accomplish the various goals of postgraduate education. Speaking of the forthcoming discipline evaluation, she also urged the supervisors and the executives to contribute more to the postgraduate program.
（Reported by Wu Lanxiang; Photographed by Chen Xiangyu）
