Department of English: An Overview
Founded in 1978, the Department of English is one of the earliest foreign language departments ever established in Zhejiang Province. With a current enrollment of 819 full-time students, it offers undergraduate programs in English Education and English (business-oriented), both of which are receiving special support from the provincial government. In 2019, our English program was listed as a national First-class Undergraduate Program specially funded by the central government.
The Department boasts a strong teaching and research team. Of its current 51 full-time faculty, 36 teachers are full professors or associate professors, and 37 teachers hold a Ph.D. degree. Half of the Department faculty hold official academic titles or have won professional honors and awards at various levels, including one “Changjiang Scholar” specially funded by the Ministry of Education, two professors receiving the State Council’s special allowance, three Provincial Disciplinary Leaders, three professors specially supported by Zhejiang Province’s “151 Talent Program”, four “Qiantang Scholars” supported by the University, etc. The Department also employs several foreign experts who take teaching and research positions on a yearly basis.
In the past five years, the Department faculty have had excellent research outputs. They have obtained 23 research projects supported by the National Social Sciences Fund and 27 projects funded by the Ministry of Education or the provincial government. Most notably, Professor Yin Qiping’s national bidding project “A Study of English Literary Classics in the Light of Historical Evolution of Cultural Concepts” is a remarkable breakthrough in the province. They have also won 26 provincial and ministerial research excellence awards. Moreover, over the recent years, the Department faculty have published more than 70 volumes of monographs and coursebooks, 127 research articles in SSCI or CSSCI-indexed scholarly journals, including Paideuma, Cambridge Quarterly, Journal of Pragmatics, Foreign Literary Review, Foreign Literary Studies, Journal of Foreign Languages Teaching and Research, Journal of Foreign Languages, and Chinese Translators’ Journal. Last but not least, our faculty members maintain regular academic exchanges with the leading scholars in the field by organizing and attending international and national conferences and workshops.
Our English program aims to train language professionals capable of taking job positions in the sectors of education management, foreign affairs, foreign trade and tourism, while the English Education program is primarily designed to nurture competent secondary school English teachers. As testimony to the consistently high quality of our programs in recent years, our students have won many important prizes at national English-related competitions and provincial teaching skills contests. They have performed consistently well at the national Test for English Majors (Band 4 and Band 8). The rate of postgraduate enrollment has been on steady increase. And the recent years have seen more and more students of ours seeking to study abroad for a higher degree. Their destinations include the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, University of Edinburgh, University of Sydney, University of Hong Kong, Fudan University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, etc. As our current files show, our graduates have been competitive on the job market and are highly regarded by their employers.
