3 years ago, informed of the construction programs for humanities at Zhejiang University, which promises hospitable and motivating environment for liberal arts, Wei Lu came back from the U.S. with his ideal. With his outstanding performances, Wei was promoted to professor and doctoral supervisor in two years.

 

Wei Lu is not an unusual example. In a university known for engineering as Zhejiang University is, faculty members in liberal arts won’t feel marginalized or non-mainstream, because it does emphasize and support the development of faculty in liberal arts by giving them opportunities to give full play of their competence and talent. All of these can be attributed to a set of evaluation and motivating systems tailored for young faculty members, which are said to “give them wings to fly”.

 

Faculty in liberal arts know very well that it’s not easy to produce high-quality academic papers. Though papers in liberal arts don’t require trials and errors in experiments, they emphasize outstanding and original viewpoints with convincing arguments which often call for painstaking research with down-to-earth investigations and thinking. In an impetuous research environment, researchers may sacrifice quality for quantity of papers. To avoid this, Zhejiang University has released "Regulations on Faculty Evaluation and Employment”, shifting the focus for the promotion of faculty from quantity to quality of their academic papers which implies objective evaluation of the major or landmark achievements of the candidates. The regulations give a special edge to faculty members devoted to research and producing quality papers.

 

In 2011, two candidates competed for one professor post. Under the guidance of the regulations aforementioned, the one with less while higher quality papers in focused field stood out. This best interprets the famous old Chinese saying “ten years of hard work succeeds in making a sword.”

 

Young faculty members may find it frustrating that their meager income erodes their ideal and confidence at the beginning of their career. Some will even surrender their ambitions and dreams in pursuit of material interest. The situation is especially hard for faculty of liberal arts due to their relatively poor income. Zhejiang University is determined to change the situation. In 2010, College of Humanities started its talent program which grants allowance to support leading researchers and young scholars in literature, history, philosophy and more fields. Limited as the allowance is, the program motivates young people in nurturing a sense of belonging in them.

 

Institutional innovations in the past few years have stimulated enthusiasm in young people. In 2011, faculty members of College of Humanities were granted 20 projects by National Social Science Fund, more than half of the total number for Zhejiang University.

 

As Vice-President Chu Jian commented, “The key to becoming a world-class university is personnel development to which a culture advocating innovation, respecting individuality, tolerating failure and relaxing mind is crucial.”