Faculty Introduction

The Faculty of History and Culture was founded in September 2003. It originated in 1942 as a special training program of history and geography in Hubei Provincial college of Education which was leaded by Zhang Chunting, an old famous educator. After that, many famous historians such as Professor Feng Tianyu, Liu Xianmei, Huang Banghe, Fang Yilan, Luo Xiaosheng, Huang Dexin, Ge Jinfang, Zhou Jiming, He Xiaoming, who have ever worked in its inheritor that named the Department of History which is the important part of the Faculty now. In 1987, the major of library and archives was established in the faculty, then established the department of archives in 1994 , the department of International cultural Communication in 2006 and the major of cultural relic and museum in 2018.

There are 58 faculty staffs in the faculty, including more than 30 professors and associate professors, the teachers with doctoral degrees account for more than 60% of the total number. The faculty owns one “Five First” talent in Hubei's propaganda and cultural front, one high-level talent in “Hubei's new century high-level talent project”, two young experts with outstanding contributions in Hubei Province, one expert who enjoys the governmental subsidy of Hubei Province, one Distinguished Professor of Hubei University and several part-time professors or visiting professors. It consists of three departments which are History, Archives, International cultural Communication, and the Institute of Chinese Ideology and Culture History. Currently, the faculty also has a number of research institutes such as Contemporary Culture Research Centre of Hubei that is the key research base of humanities and social science in Hubei provincial university, Archives Research Institute of Hubei ,  Enterprise Archives and Knowledge Management Research Centre of Hubei, Archives Talents Education Centre of Hubei ,Yangtze River Culture Research Institute of China , Brazil Research Centre of Hubei University, Latin American History Study Room, China-Japan Social Comparison Research Centre, Female Culture Research Centre of Hubei University , Jingchu Culture Research Centre of Hubei University , Hubei’s Urban and Rural Regional Development Research Centre of Hubei University , and International Han Yeping Research Centre of Hubei University and so on. 

All majors in the faculty cover 3 disciplines fields as history, management, and law. On the ranking list of Cuaa.Net in 2016, the major of history ranked in the top 50 in China as a whole,  the discipline of Chinese history was rated as a high-level discipline with 4 stars, and ranked in the top 20 in China. The discipline of Archival science was rated as the first class discipline in the region, ranking 54 in China. Furthermore, the discipline of Chinese history was selected as the discipline with characteristic of Hubei Province in the 12th Five-Year Plan, and as the supporting discipline in the Chinese cultural inheritance and development disciplines group which is one of the groups of superior characteristic disciplines of Hubei Province in the 13th Five-Year Plan, and as the Positioned discipline of Chu-tian province outstanding-scholar Program. The faculty possesses Ph.D. programs and Master's programs in the first-class disciplines of Chinese history, Master's programs of world history, archives, curriculum and  teaching theory (history) in the second-class disciplines, Professional Master's programs in the first-class disciplines of Library and information science, and Professional Master's programs in history education (Ed. M.). The faculty also has 4 undergraduate majors, including History, Archival Science, International affairs and International relations, Cultural relics and Museology, and once has run a experimental class for reforming the cultivation mode for Arts talents in Hubei province.

The faculty has built a wide range of contacts with universities at home and abroad. It has sent many staffs as visiting scholars or giving lectures to Australia, Korea, Russia, Japan, Brazil, the United States, Singapore, and the regions of China such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, hosting international academic conferences, publishing works overseas, all that promoted Sino-foreign academic exchanges.

In the faculty, all the teachers are diligent and dedicated and form the rigorous and active style of teaching and learning. Graduates who had trained in the faculty have high comprehensive quality and are highly praised by employers.

Teaching and scientific research:

Over the years, the faculty has undertaken seven provincial-level teaching and research projects, twenty seven college-level teaching and research projects, and been awarded one the second prize of the national teaching achievement, and one the first prize, one the second prize , two the third prize of the Hubei provincial teaching achievement. In the construction of the teaching quality project, four staffs of the faculty won the excellent teaching quality award of the university. The faculty has won two provincial-level excellent courses, one college-level excellent course and four college-level excellent video open courses that with subsidized. One course was launched on the websites of the UOOC Union, Tsinghua School Online and Chinese MOOC respectively and one teacher won the third prize of Arts and History group (undergraduate) in the first National University micro-course teaching competition. There are four teaching training bases at the university level which are building in the faculty. In addition, the students’ performance in the second classroom is gratifying. More than 150 students have won the National College English Competition Award. Our students won two the second prizes and four the third prizes in the National History Education Undergraduate Teaching Skills Competition, three the first prizes and one the second prize in Hubei Normal University Students Teaching Skills Competition, one the third prizes in the the "Internet +" College Students' innovation and startups competition, one outstanding works prize in the first national creative extracurricular scientific and technological exhibition of archives science , four the students’ innovation and startups projects in provincial level, and three the students’ outstanding fruit awards in provincial level. 

For years our teachers have carried out fruitful researches in the fields of Chinese cultural history, social history, economic history, Ming and Qing history, Chu cultural history, Latin American studies, international relations history, Hubei regional culture, archives and so on. They have published History of Chinese Culture, History of Hubei Culture, Commentary on Chinese Social History, Introduction to Chinese Culture, Concussion and Conflict: Thought and Society in the Early Modernization of China, Cultural Character of Chinese Traditional Way of Handling the World, Social Culture and Social Transformation of Modern China,  Academic Tension: Ideological Practice between History and Theory, Returning to the Origin and innovation: A New Perspective of Modern Chinese Cultural Conservatism, Merchants and Yangloudong Regional Society, General Records of Chinese Culture: the ancient books and records of Institution and Culture: Records of Land, taxes and corvée, Research on History and Modernization of Brazil, A New Perspective of History of Sino-Japanese Relations , Diao Ran and The Exchange of Buddhism between China and Japan in the early Song dynasty, The Concession in Hankou: An Investigation of Historical Sociology, Dual Values: the Tradition and Modernization of Chinese Archives, the Science of Archives Culture, An Introduction to Electronic Document Management, A Study of Wuhan Newspapers and Periodicals in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China, The value and management standard of enterprise archives and other influential academic works. In recent years, the faculty has undertaken one major national bidding project for social sciences, more than 70 projects of social sciences in the national or provincial and ministerial level, has published nearly 100 works of various kinds, more than 1000 academic papers, and have won more than 15 excellent achievement prizes or books awards of social science in the national, provincial, ministerial and Wuhan’s level.

personnel training

With carrying out the concept of scientific development in depth, insisting on taking students as the center, promoting students' comprehensive healthy development, cultivating students' various abilities, the faculty has achieved a new breakthrough and development in students’ management. In the matter of student volunteer service, the rate of participation is more than 60%. The Youth Volunteer Association of the faculty was awarded the title of “Filial Piety Star of Student in the Year 2016” in the university. In terms of scientific and technological innovation, the faculty has actively carried out kinds of students’ extracurricular academic and technological innovation activities, in which students actively participated, and won national awards. In the field of quality education, by organizing New Year's Evening Party, reading experience exchange activities such as Classics reading and enjoying the culture, and other  activities which organized by the students’ associations, the faculty has enriched students’ extracurricular life and promoted the improvement of students' comprehensive quality. As for social practice, the faculty has organized students actively to carry out social practice activities in various fields such as science, education, culture and health, which are in the flexible forms of group or individual practice for encouraging all of them to join the social practice activities. The students’ participation rate of the faculty has reached more than 80%, and the faculty has been awarded many times for outstanding teams at or above the provincial level.

At present, there are 663 full-time undergraduate students, 139 doctoral and master students in the faculty. Since the founding of the faculty, the faculty has trained more than 10,000 high-level professionals and a large number of graduates who have grown into elites and backbone forces in the fields of party and government administration, education, science and technology, press and publishing, and enterprise management in Hubei and even in the whole country such as Feng Tianyu, a well-known historian and the first Jing-chu social scientist in Hubei Province; Wang Xiaode, the president of China Latin American Research Association; Liu Yutang, a Hubei social scientist; Peng Chi, an entrepreneur; Liu Qingping, an expert in culture. All persons of the above are outstanding alumnus of the faculty.