Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology

Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology (XAUAT) is located in the famous historical and cultural city of Xian. To its far south is the world-famous Big Wild Goose Pagoda, built in the Tang Dynasty, adjacent to the north, is the renowned city wall of the Ming Dynasty. The university covers an area of 3,100,000 m2, including a construction area of 900,000 m2. The campus is picturesque and charming and is permeated with a rich academic ambiance.

The origin of XAUAT dates back to 1895, the year when Tianjin Beiyang School of Western Learning (Beiyang University) was first established. Over the years, the university pooled together the earliest elites in the disciplines of civil engineering, architecture, and municipal engineering in the history of modern Chinese higher education. In 1956, in the third nation-wide restructuring of universities and colleges, the school was named Xi'an Institute of Construction Engineering after integrating and amalgamating departments of civil engineering, architecture, and municipal engineering at the Northeast Institute of Technology, Northwest Institute of Technology, Qingdao Institute of Technology, and South Jiangsu Technical School. The school was renamed Xi'an Institute of Metallurgy in 1959 and subsequently Xi'an Institute of Metallurgy and Construction Engineering in 1963. On March 8, 1994, approved by the Ministry of Education, the school adopted its present name, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology. It is now widely recognized as one of China's most influential universities in the field of civil engineering and architecture.

XAUAT inherits and promotes the professional advantage and expertise accumulated over more than a hundred years. More than 50 years has elapsed since the merger. Through the unremitting efforts of all teachers and students, the university has become a multi-disciplinary university with a profound cultural tradition, a rich academic atmosphere, and a beautiful campus environment, and it enjoys a good reputation both at home and abroad. The university has the disciplines of civil engineering and architecture as its characteristic specialties, engineering as the major discipline, and also other disciplines such as liberal arts, sciences, economics, management, art and law. At present, the university has 16 schools and departments offering 56 undergraduate programs to students in China. The university is empowered to enroll students recommended for admission who can undertake the undergraduate-graduate programs consecutively. Apart from the 3 disciplines of architecture, city planning and landscape science which offer a five-year curriculum, the remainder of the disciplines provide four-year undergraduate programs. The university has 9 specialties designated as the national characteristic specialties, namely architecture, city planning, civil engineering, environmental engineering, building environment and facility engineering, engineering management, material science and engineering, water and wastewater engineering, and art design. In addition, 11 specialties are provincial characteristic specialties. They are architecture, civil engineering, city planning, environmental engineering, metallurgical engineering, water and wastewater engineering, building environment and facility engineering, engineering management, metal material engineering, inorganic material engineering, and art design.

The university has a faculty and staff of over 2,500, including 3 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 1 member of the South African Academy of Science, and about 800 teachers, engineers, technicians, and researchers with high professional titles. The teachers' team is well-balanced, rationally structured, outstanding, and competent. Currently, the university has about 40,000 students, including about 19,000 undergraduates, over 5,000 postgraduates, and about 14,000 students at the vocational and technical college level, plus the college of further education.

XAUAT is among the first batch of universities authorized by the State Council to grant doctorate, Master's, and Bachelor's degrees. The university has 5 first-level and 25 second-level disciplines accredited to confer doctoral degrees, 20 first-level and 67 second-level disciplines to confer master's degrees which cover almost all the disciplines at the university. There are 4 centers for post-doctoral studies in architecture, civil engineering, environmental science and engineering, material science and engineering. Moreover there are 3 national key disciplines, viz. structural engineering, environmental engineering, architectural design and theory. The university also boasts 1 national key laboratory cultivating base, 1 national research and promotion center for high and new technology, 21 provincial or ministerial academies, research institutes, centers, and laboratories, including 3 Grade A design and research institutes (architecture, city planning, and building material) and many other high level research institutes.

For half a century, XAUAT has formulated as its educational philosophy the principles of “boosting civilization inheritance, creating a bright future, fostering talents to invigorate China, enriching the people with technology”, and being “independent, realistic, inquisitive and creative” as its motto. In addition, the university fosters the phrase “be honest and lay a solid foundation, be reliable and work conscientiously” as its school spirit. Up till now, the university has educated more than 150,000 graduates for the nation, and the majority of them have become the backbone of the country with moral integrity and professional competence. Moreover, the university has achieved numerous high-level research results and thus has made outstanding contributions to China's economic construction and social development.

In recent years, guided by the principles of “upgrading educational and teaching quality, enhancing discipline construction, optimizing resource allocation, and deepening system reform”, the university has launched and implemented 6 basic projects: Campus Construction Projects, an Educational and Teaching Quality Project, a Discipline Construction Project, a Talent Team Construction Project, an Innovation Project, and a Cultural Construction Project. Consequently, the university has led its educational community onto the road of harmonious and fast development, and has reinforced its comprehensive strength. Accordingly, the important indexes used to assess university performance such as the number of academicians, national key disciplines, first-level doctorate programs, centers for post-doctoral studies, doctoral programs, master's programs, the overall ranking of the university, size of the campus and the sum of funds allocated annually to the university have undergone significant breakthroughs and some have been doubled. The university has been selected by the Ministry of Education as one of the first group of universities for the program of “Outstanding Engineers Education and Training Plan”. Moreover, the university is one of the 64 “Pilot Universities/Colleges for Professional Academic Degree Education of Postgraduates”, and one of the 50 “Model Universities/Colleges for Facilitating the Employment of Graduates”.

Spurred on by the campaign of rejuvenating China through science and education, and the development of West China, the university is striving for ‘great-leap-forward' development and is aiming to rank among internationally renowned universities and China's best universities.