Establishment and a Rise to Fame (1896-1949)
1.Background -- Development of Railway Engineering
The specialty of civil engineering (then named railway engineering department) was provided as early as in 1896 when the Southwest Jiaotong University was founded, in a bid to produce professionals in railway.Among the first cohort of 37 students admitted, 20 completed their studies and 17 were conferred academic degrees in March 1900. They were the first group of specialists in civil engineering throughout the country. Among them, Zhang Haoran, Xushiyuan and other three outstanding graduates assisted Zhan Tianyou, “Father of China’ Railway”, in building the Peking-Kalgan Railway (Beijing to Zhangjiakou), the first railway constructed in China without any foreign assistance. In the following decades, graduates of SWJTU contributed a lot to China’s railway construction undertakings. It has been proved that with self-independence and an introduction of advanced knowledge, China is able to foster its own engineers for railway construction and development. The Imperial Chinese Railway College at Shanhaiguan, the origin of SWJTU, played an important role in the evolution and development of Chinese engineering universities and is dubbed as the birthplace of China's modern education in civil engineering.
2. Delivery Mode
Since its establishment, SWJTU learned from Western colleges and universities, providing courses in railway engineering, mining and metallurgical engineering, mechanical engineering and others in an attempt to develop high-end talents, proposing the 4-year programme duration and formulating teaching plans and contents accordingly. It employed foreign teachers to deliver main courses in English. It was renamed Tangshan College of Railway and Mining in 1905 and formulated the Rules of Shanhaiguan College of Railway and Mining in April 1907 and the General Principles of Tangshan College of Railway and Mining (14 principles in total) in 1910. As one of the first group of colleges and schools requiring students to hand in dissertations in China, it blazed a new path of combining learning and research to improve students’ abilities to apply what they acquire to solve engineering problems, exerting great influence on universities throughout the country and also making its engineering graduates widely recognized in the world since 1911.
3. Brilliant Teaching Faculty and Remarkable Achievements
On January 1st, 1912, the Republic of China was founded. Thecollege was renamed Tangshan Railway Institute in July 1912 and then Tangshan Industrial Technical College in September1913 when the name of its “Railway Engineering Department” was changed into “Civil Engineering Department”. During that period, the school hosted a group of renowned professors, including the famous “Five Seniors”, namely Luo Zhongchen, the college’s first Chinese professor, Wu Jinghu, Li Feiying, Gu Yisun and Huang Shouheng with an international educational background. They devoted their whole life to the development of the college. In addition, Mao Yisheng, a world famous expert in bridge construction, educator and social activist, was one of the graduates in 1916 and contributed a great deal to the college’s development. Under the influence of those knowledgeable professors who were meticulous in scholarship, self-disciplined and perseverant in self-improvement, a climate of “diligence, down-to-earth, patriotism and meticulous scholarship” was shaped and valued till now.
The university topped the national list in the ranking of teaching achievements. In 1916, the Ministry of Education (MOE) held a student performance exhibition and competition to display the examination papers and academic articles with high scores among 71 junior colleges or above. The university was rated excellent by the expert panel and granted a board of honour inscribed with calligraphy “Si Shi Yang Hua”. The four characters refer to the spirit of “cultivating talents for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” In 1917, the Ministry of Transport organized an examination for the country’s all students in railway, and Tangshan Industrial Technical College secured the first place with largest enrollment and highest marks gained by students.
A new department of mining and metallurgy was set up in 1913, department of railway administration in 1937, and department of architecture in 1946. Meanwhile, the original department of mining and metallurgy was divided into two separate departments. The delivery scale has been expanded. During the period, two thirds of the graduates were in the programme of civil engineering and cultivated according to the programme-specific development plan.
Structural Adjustment and Development (1950-1994)
ersities and colleges to integrate the national educational resources, bolster the development of higher education and cultivate professionals to meet the large demand. The original department of civil engineering was transformed into the department of railway construction, and the department of structure into the department of bridges and tunnels. Besides, the mining department was incorporated into Beijing Institute of Mining and Technology (now China University of Mining and Technology), the metallurgical department into Beijing Steel and Iron Institute (now University of Science and Technology Beijing), the chemical department into Tianjin University, and the department of materials into Beijing Railway College (now Beijing Jiaotong University). As shown, SWJTU has made great contributions to the development of China’s higher education. In 1956, the programme duration changed from four academic years to five academic years. The specialty of industrial and civil construction engineering was newly provided in 1957 and the specialties of engineering geology and hydrological geology were newly provided by the department of architecture in 1958. The department of railway and the department of bridge and tunnel were merged into the department of railway engineering in 1981 and it was divided into two separate departments in 1983, namely department of civil engineering and department of stereophotogrammetry and geologic engineering.
The School of Civil Engineering (SCE) was official established in 1994 after a series of structural adjustments, consisting of 7 departments of road and railway engineering, bridge engineering, underground engineering, architectural engineering, geotechnical engineering, geological engineering and surveying engineering, 4 teaching and research offices under direct administration of SCE, namely engineering drafting, building material, structural mechanics and fluid mechanics, construction survey and design institute, and 4 experimental centers of structural engineering, wind engineering, geotechnical engineering and centrifuges.
Further Development and Prosperity (1995-up to now)
In 1995, the original specialty of railway engineering, bridge engineering and tunnel engineering were merged into traffic and civil engineering, industrial and civil construction engineering, civil engineering structure and geotechnical engineering into architectural engineering. In 1996, SWJTU was the first to implement a category-specific development plan (other key universities did so after 1998), and merge traffic and civil engineering and architectural engineering into the specialty of civil engineering, covering road engineering, municipal engineering, airport engineering and water conservancyengineering.
In 1996, the school, as a higher education entity, integrated teaching and research resources and provided four undergraduate specialties of surveying and mapping engineering, geological engineering, geographic information system and remote sensing science and technology,contributing its part to cultivate professionals in civil engineering.
In conclusion, the specialty of civil engineering in SWJTU has a long history since the end of the 19th century, stretching through the late Qing Dynasty, the Revolution of 1911, the rule by the Nationalist Party of China, the foundation of the People’s Republic of China and the period of reform and opening-up. Once dedicated to only serving the railway construction and authorities, thanks to painstaking efforts of generations of students and faculties, its training system now covers industrial and civil construction, road transportation, municipal engineering and other relevant fields, and has a multi-level talents development system granting bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctoral degree, yielding a pool of high-end professionals and playing a leading role in the evolution of China’s modern higher education. Among them are 30 academicians of CAS and CAE and masters of surveying and design (such as Zhu Kezhen, Mao Yisheng and Tung-Yen Lin before 1949, Wang Sanyi and Shi Zhongheng in 1950s, Wang Mengshu and Shi Yuxin in 1960s and Xu Gongyi in 1980s, just to name a few).
