Keywords: major; Professional construction; idea
In the late 1990s, a series of reform policies, such as the reform of university management system, the substantial expansion of the scale of higher education, the reduction of professional catalogue and the employment distribution policy, led to the decentralization of local management power of a large number of universities, the expansion of school autonomy, and the convergence of professional structure and service orientation among universities. At the same time, it also puts forward a series of new propositions for the development and competition of universities, especially those built by provincial departments. Among them, under the guidance of the cognition that "characteristics determine survival" and the goal of rapidly expanding the scale and improving the level of running schools, how to maintain and carry forward the original characteristics of professional construction: how to deal with the relationship between service industries and service places; How to deal with the relationship between new and old majors; How to choose a new major and integrate the existing school-running characteristics into the general major has become the most difficult problem for such universities to make decisions.
Ji Liang University in China, as a university that implements a "province-oriented" management system and trains senior professionals in quality supervision, inspection and quarantine, had a single discipline structure before the Ninth Five-Year Plan. Facing the change of school environment, the discipline orientation with engineering as the main body and coordinated development of multiple disciplines has been established. In line with the concept of "everyone has his own advantages, and everyone has his own advantages", we will stick to the road of specialty construction with characteristic development.
First, closely rely on industries and adhere to connotative expansion.
For local and provincial colleges and universities that undertake most of the enrollment expansion tasks, the pressure of professional expansion is very great. Under the multiple constraints of enrollment, employment and subject foundation, it is very difficult to choose a new major reasonably, and it is easy to happen that the professional layout tends to converge and the characteristics are weakened because of following the trend. For the universities built by the provincial government, most of them have obvious school-running characteristics and accumulated relative advantages. Relying on the characteristics of the original industry and carrying out connotative expansion according to the needs of industry development is an effective strategy. As the only university in China that was originally affiliated to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, our school specializes in training quality inspection talents. The characteristics of the industry determine the professional pattern of a single metrology and testing discipline in its early days. Before 1988, the school had only six metrology and testing majors and 1 metrology management majors. With the development of national quality inspection, according to the expansion of the business scope of AQSIQ, the requirements of the State Council's "Quality Revitalization Plan (1996-2010)" and the strategy of "Strengthening the inspection of talents" of AQSIQ, the school timely adjusted the layout of disciplines and specialties, and successively added quality inspection and management disciplines. After 1998, faced with the changes in the external environment such as the adjustment of professional catalogue, enrollment expansion and management system, and the pressure of professional expansion, the school adhered to the positioning of "based on Zhejiang, facing the whole country, relying on industry and serving the local area" and the road of "characteristic development", relying on the national quality to rapidly develop and revitalize the cause, and expanding the service scope in combination with the needs of Zhejiang's local economy to build a "brand province". In order to provide more comprehensive personnel training and scientific and technological service support for quality inspection administration, technical support, intermediary services, laws and regulations, a number of characteristic majors closely related to the national quality inspection field, such as product quality engineering, food quality and safety, and safety engineering, have been added, among which the specialty of product quality engineering is the first in China. So far, most of the 39 majors in the school are closely related to the needs of measurement, standards, quality, inspection and quarantine. Subjects cover engineering, science, management, law, literature, economics, medicine (pharmacy) and other categories. The layout of disciplines and specialties provides strong support for the school's development goals, service orientation and school-running characteristics. In the case of excessive increase in the number of disciplines, the layout of disciplines has been maintained.
Second, according to the principle of comparative advantage, choose a new major.
There are many factors to consider when choosing a new major. Social demand, discipline foundation and the degree of coincidence with the development orientation of the school are usually considered as the three most important factors. The former determines the destination of students, while the latter two determine the quality and characteristics of training. Some colleges and universities pay more attention to the former and ignore the latter when choosing majors. As a result, it is difficult to guarantee the quality and characteristics of students' training and their employment competitiveness is insufficient. In fact, we believe that the demand for talents in society is extensive and can be subdivided. The key is to identify market segments and cultivate talents with characteristics. Therefore, the strength of the subject foundation and the degree of kissing with the development orientation of the school are the key factors. Based on this understanding, in the planning, demonstration and selection of new majors in our school, we mainly examine whether the professional orientation is consistent with the development of the school, whether there are related disciplines to rely on, whether there is a high level of discipline construction and strong radiation and infiltration ability, and whether the characteristic orientation is clear. , and through the comprehensive evaluation of the comparative advantage to choose. At the same time, in the relationship between discipline and specialty construction, we should adhere to the principle of discipline construction first, and combine the construction of master's degree points to lay a good discipline foundation for the planned new specialty. Since the middle and late 1990s, based on the traditional dominant discipline-measurement and testing technology, the school has intensified the construction of characteristic disciplines around the intersection and integration of measurement disciplines with emerging disciplines such as computer, biology and materials, and established a broad-sense measurement science and technology and its related disciplines (poultry standards and quality), which has strongly supported the expansion of newly established majors. Up to now, most of the newly-built majors in our school have a solid foundation of existing disciplines, and the new disciplines have strong cross-penetration ability with existing disciplines, which fully reflects the development orientation and school-running characteristics of our school. Such as training the safety inspection of boilers, pressure vessels and special equipment, and supervising the safety engineering specialty of technicians; Bio-engineering majors train quarantine and inspection talents of biological products; Product quality engineering, food quality and safety, etc. About two-thirds of the newly established majors in our school since 2000 are supported by the disciplines authorized by master's degrees, and other majors are also supported by disciplines to apply for master's degrees.
Three, based on inheritance, cultivate professional characteristics, relying on dominant disciplines to build characteristic majors.
The growth process of specialty with characteristics is a process in which the discipline strength is constantly enhanced, the school-running mode is constantly accumulated from imitation to innovation, the school-running experience is constantly accumulated, the professional characteristics are constantly strengthened, and finally it is fully recognized by the society.
Specialty with characteristics needs to be supported by corresponding advantageous disciplines and integrated with other school-running characteristics, and the formation of specialty with characteristics needs a long process. Obviously, the way to accelerate the formation of the characteristics of newly established majors and general majors cannot start from scratch. We must try to integrate the characteristics of the school on the basis of inheritance, form professional characteristics by injecting core elements, and gradually strengthen them, and finally form a characteristic specialty.
After the state adjusted the catalogue of undergraduate majors from 65438 to 0998, while vigorously cultivating professional characteristics and building characteristic majors, our school actively reorganized old majors and added new majors, broadened the scope of majors and optimized the layout of majors. First, reorganize and optimize the original metrology and testing majors, and set up specialties with distinctive metrology and testing characteristics such as "measurement and control technology and instruments" and "optical information science and technology" and focus on construction; Second, by inheriting the foundation of dominant disciplines and characteristic majors, a number of characteristic majors closely related to the national quality inspection cause have been added, such as "product quality engineering", "food quality and safety" and "safety engineering". Third, the newly established majors are infused with school-running characteristics, and the connotations of general majors and professional directions are given corresponding standards, measurement and quality, so as to cultivate professional characteristics, such as business administration, automation, thermal power and engineering, electrical engineering and its automation, industrial engineering, bioengineering, law, intellectual property and other majors with distinctive "quality inspection" characteristics.
By the end of 2006, among the 39 undergraduate majors built on the basis of four key construction disciplines of AQSIQ, 1 provincial key disciplines, four provincial key disciplines, "National Magnetic Materials Testing Center" and "Zhejiang Magnetic Materials Experimental Base", the number of distinctive and characteristic majors exceeded 40% of the total number of majors and the number of students exceeded 50%.
Fourth, based on characteristic courses, promote the construction of characteristic majors and professional characteristics.
The effect of characteristic specialty and specialty characteristic construction is finally reflected in the cultivation of characteristic talents, which needs to be realized by integrating the core elements of school-running characteristics into the talent cultivation scheme and effectively organizing and implementing it, and the characteristic theoretical teaching and practical teaching curriculum system is the ultimate goal. In order to properly solve the problems of * * * and characteristics in personnel training, the school has been exploring the "wide-caliber and characteristic" professional education mode, implementing the "platform+module" professional training mode, and properly solving the connection between wide-caliber training and the constantly refined social division of labor. Always take "tapping advantages and embodying characteristics" as an important principle, pay attention to running professional characteristics through all aspects of talent training, and constantly improve the characteristic curriculum system. The main methods are as follows: first, set up eight public characteristic courses closely related to "quality inspection" and set minimum elective credits for all professional students; Secondly, for the major with great correlation with quality inspection, add special courses of this major to cultivate students' technical expertise in quality inspection; The third is to implement the construction project of characteristic courses, including five provincial-level excellent courses such as Testing Technology and 13 school-level excellent courses, and published 13 characteristic textbooks such as Measurement Management. The fourth is to implement a practical teaching system with industry characteristics, focusing on industry characteristics, and finding the right combination point from the aspects of teaching content, extracurricular technology, base construction and graduation design project selection. Because the characteristics of "standard, measurement and quality" are always emphasized in the setting of practical teaching system and the teaching process of each practical link, in recent years, more than 30% of the awards won by students in various disciplines competitions at all levels are directly related to "quality inspection", such as "low-frequency digital phase measuring instrument", the second prize of the 2003 National Electronic Design Competition for College Students; In 2003, the eighth "Challenge Cup" national second prize of the national extracurricular academic scientific and technological works competition for college students, "new intelligent irrigation system plant leaf moisture information accurate diagnosis sensor"; In 2005, the ninth "Challenge Cup" National Undergraduate Extracurricular Academic Research Works Competition won the third prize, "Pipeline Inspection Robot with Machine Vision and Smell Function" and so on.
Over the years, the professional construction concept and practice of "characteristic development" in our school have achieved the effect of "students benefit, parents are satisfied and society recognizes". The quality of students and employment rate have always been in the forefront of colleges and universities in the province. Most graduates are engaged in quality inspection-related jobs in quality inspection systems or ordinary enterprises and institutions, which directly serve the national quality revitalization.
With the strategic transformation of higher education from scale expansion to quality improvement, the focus of specialty construction in colleges and universities is changing from quantity expansion to rich connotation. "Characteristic" is an important symbol of the level of specialty construction, and the construction of characteristic specialty and specialty characteristics will surely attract more attention. Colleges and universities must adhere to the correct concept, choose and cultivate characteristic majors according to their own conditions, and promote and radiate the overall development of other majors with characteristic majors to improve the level of running schools.
Yi Ronghua, Director and Professor of the Academic Affairs Office of Ji Liang University in China; Pan Lan, deputy director and professor of the Academic Affairs Office of Ji Liang University in China.
[Editor: Zhang Dongmei]