n recent years, Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) has accomplished a great deal in reforming its disciplines. Combining its Multilingual+ Initiative and intercultural tradition with its insistence on moral enhancement through education, the university launched a series of efforts to upgrade its leading programs, promote interdisplinarity, invigorate the system and improve the quality of development.

New undergraduate programs improving disciplinary layout

Approved by the Ministry of Education in early March, three new undergraduate programs, Romanian Language and Literature, International Journalism and Communication and Financial Management, are now added to the university’s list of undergraduate degree programs, making the total number of programs 53, and 34 of which are in language studies.

Figure 1: SISU's new undergraduate programs in 2021

SISU opened 13 new undergraduate programs during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, including the ones on languages spoken by countries along “the Belt and Road” such as Polish, Czech, Kazak, Uzbek, Swahili, Serbian, and Romanian, the teaching of which are of strategic importance to China. It also opened Data Science and Big Data Technology and Big Data Management and Application, China’s first interdisciplinary undergraduate programs in Linguistics, answering the call of the era of artificial intelligence and big data. Other newly opened programs include Diplomacy, International Journalism and Reporting, and Financial Management.

Built on the basis of research, distinctive from existing programs and able to answer the needs of society, these new degree programs were set up strictly in line with China’s need for quality programs of higher education.

Committing itself to building of the “New Liberal Arts Disciplines” and its goal to become a university with first-class undergraduate programs, SISU considering the construction of these new programs as an opportunity to adding on to the university’s existing strengths while breaking new grounds.

From national first-class undergraduate programs to “New Liberal Arts”

On the list of the 2020 list of first-class undergraduate programs on national and provincial levels released by the Ministry of Education are nine of SISU’s undergraduate programs, including Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, Hindi, Hebrew, Portuguese, Turkish, Greek, Business English, Journalism Studies, and Information Management and Information System.

These programs, together with the 12 programs included on the 2019 list, English, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Persian, Korean, Translation and Interpreting, International Politics and Business Management, make SISU’s total number of first-class undergraduate programs 21, which takes up 42% of the university’s undergraduate degree programs. It is noteworthy that these 21 programs come from seven of the university’s disciplinary branches, which shows the balanced development of SISU’s diverse disciplines.

During the 14th five-year period, SISU will continue to be a role model for constructing the “New Liberal Arts Disciplines” and platforms of high-end talent cultivation, launching its Multilingual+ Initiative to the next stage and moving closer to its goal of becoming a world-class university featuring global and area studies.

Figure 2: SISU national first-class undergraduate programs

The article is translated by Zhou Zixuan and Zhang Ruiqi, and proofread by Huang Yuhong and Li Ruyang, members of the Translation Association of the School of English Studies (SESTA) at Shanghai International Studies University. For use of the content, please contact: ses_translators@163.com.