The office of Xu Zongxiang, an associate professor in the Chemistry Department, is small but comfortable. Talking about the “Distinguished Administrative Service Award” won by him at the 2018 SUSTech Teachers’ Day Award Ceremony, Mr. Xu, who was a little reserved in the face of the camera at the beginning, is radiant with joy.

Xu Zongxiang in the interview

Xu Zongxiang has been working in the Southern University of Science and Technology since May, 2012, witnessing six years of rapid development of SUSTech. In addition to teaching and research, Xu Zongxiang devotes himself to the enrollment of the university. He has been the leader of the enrollment team of Fujian Province for six consecutive years and established a stable enrollment team of professors. Through his efforts, the average scores and provincial rankings of the College Entrance Examination of Fujian students enrolled by SUSTech are rising year by year. Meanwhile, Xu Zongxiang takes on some administrative work as a member of the student appeals committee, the professor representative of the bidding working group, and a member of the safety committee of the university. Besides, he is also the head of the safety committee of the chemistry department, contributing his efforts to ensure that there is no safety accident in the chemistry department for years in a row.

Striving to enroll the best students to SUSTech

The Southern University of Science and Technology is an innovative and young university. To let more middle schools, students and parents know and choose SUSTech, in addition to improving the research and teaching abilities, a lot of enrollment promotion and related work also need to be done. Xu Zongxiang, together with other teachers with the same ideal and pursuit, has made great efforts to this end.

When it comes to the question whether the complicated administrative work will influence the research and teaching, Xu Zongxiang said frankly that there will be some influence. For example, the annual university enrollment starts in December and lasts to mid-July in the following year, almost covering two semesters of autumn and spring. In the days when the university was newly established, the enrollment team was still weak. As the head of the enrollment team of Fujian Province, in addition to teaching and research, Xu Zongxiang devoted more efforts and time to the enrollment.

“Students are the foundation for the rapid development of the university.” As a front-line teacher, Xu Zongxiang knows the importance of enrollment. He believes that although teachers need to teach and research, they have the consensus and tacit understanding about enrollment, and strive to enroll the best students to SUSTech. Meanwhile, Mr. Xu believes that enrollment and teaching complement each other, and enrolling students in person can help teachers to know students better and teach with clearer targets.

The Ministry of Education advocates that universities should add “burdens” to students and undergraduate education should be “easy in and strict out”, which are also the concern of parents and students. Xu Zongxiang says, “Through the enrollment promotion, we should fully illustrate the characteristics and advantages of SUSTech as a demonstration university for higher education reform to students and parents. We should make it clear to them that studying at SUSTech is no easy task, and they will make progress and achievements in the future.” He says that 20 students in Fujian Province were enrolled in the undergraduate program of SUSTech as the first group of students. At that time, the ranking of their average scores of the college entrance examination in Fujian Province was far lower than that of the students enrolled in some universities belonging to the “Project 985”, but over 70% of the students graduated with full scholarships from well-known overseas universities to continue the study for doctorates. The data over the past 4 years shows that graduates from SUSTech have higher qualities than students with the same college entrance examination scores enrolled in other universities. Therefore, more and more students and parents choose the Southern University of Science and Technology. There is an outstanding student from Fujian Province in Xu Zongxiang's research group who came to SUSTech in 2016. As soon as he entered the university, he told Xu Zongxiang that he was very interested in chemistry, and now he has published five papers in periodicals and magazines as a co-author in Xu Zongxiang's research group.

Xu is instructing students to do experiments

Guiding students to be rigorous in learning and virtuous in personal conducts

When it comes to the training of students, Xu Zongxiang talks about it with great interest. He believes that talents are not necessary to be cultivated by professional mentors, life mentors can also guide students to the right path by sharing experience and providing suggestions. He talked about his university life during his first class. He was admitted to the chemistry base class of Xiamen University in 1997, but he was dropped out of the base class because he began to play computer games after the admission. His GPA of the 4-year undergraduate study was very low. Therefore, he failed to apply for the doctorate study in the University of Hong Kong. Later, he worked very hard in the research group of Academician Zhi Zhiming for half a year as a RA, and was recognized by Mr. Zhi and recommended to HKU to study for his doctorate degree. Xu Zongxiang says that Mr. Zhi’ s words that “to do what you are interested in” have been influencing him all the time. Therefore, he attaches great importance to cultivating students’ interest. He believes that we should provide education to all students without discrimination, and we can cultivate excellent talents if we guide them correctly. The difference between the cultivation of excellent students and poor students mainly lies in the time and energy invested. “For example, students will be more active and enthusiastic in study if we provide more guidance when they do experiments, provide more support when they have new ideas, and add their names in the papers to be published if they have made some contributions, which can give them a sense of achievement.”

Xu Zongxiang cites an example: “In 2016, there was a student from Sichuan Province who delayed the graduation for one year because of poor grades, and it seemed to be impossible for him to pursue the graduate study. He had been a RA in my research group for one year, and last year he sent me an e-mail, saying that he had successfully applied for the doctoral degree study in HKU. Therefore, the most important thing is to guide the students correctly, find their own advantages and cultivate different interests.

Xu Zongxiang encourages students to be “courageous, pioneering, realistic and pragmatic”. He asks students to be rigorous in learning and virtuous in personal conducts. Once there was a student in the research group who embellished the data to perfect the experimental results, and he corrected this student timely and criticized him strictly when he knew about it. He believes that as a teacher, he should have the moral integrity first, and then be a good guide to the students.

Nowadays, the whole society is talking about innovation. Xu Zongxiang believes that innovation should not be just a slogan, and it requires persistence. When it comes to education, teachers should guide and influence the innovative thinking of students imperceptibly. In terms of the hot issue of the entrepreneurship of university students, Mr. Xu says that he will not encourage students to start up business because he thinks that university graduates need to accumulate working and social experience. But if there are students who want to try to start a business, he will also provide the greatest support.

Xu Zongxiang and his students

“The boundary between work and life is blurred, but I enjoy it.”

In terms of life, Xu Zongxiang’ s eyes are full of happiness when he talks about his families. Like many other teachers at SUSTech, the boundary between his life and work seems to be blurred. He devotes almost all his time to work, and sometimes he goes to enroll students or attend academic conferences on weekends. However, he thinks that living at the university is very convenient, and he can use the fragmented time to accompany his family, which satisfies him a lot. He says: “When I get up in the morning, I make the breakfast and eat with my child and wife while talking about the topics of interest. Then my child goes to school happily, and we start our work of the day. After dinner, we go for a walk together in the beautiful campus of SUSTech, feeling productive and heart-warming. After spending time with my family, I usually go to work again. In our opinion, working outside the working hours is just working, not working overtime.”

In his view, in addition to research and teaching, serving the development of the school is also a very important work. “Teaching and research are the most important tasks for us, but other work such as the enrollment and administrative services also needs to be done, and the development of SUSTech needs everyone’s selfless dedication.” Xu Zongxiang has done what he says, and he has set a good example for other teachers.

Text by Liang Bingzhuo

Photo by Zhang Xiaoyan