International College
Established in July 2003, the International College (IC) of Hunan Agricultural University is the earliest college in Hunan Province to set up Sino-foreign Educational Cooperation Program for Undergraduate Project approved and evaluated by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of PRC. The College is committed to cultivating international, inter-disciplinary and applied talents. It has established stable cooperative relations with many high-quality universities in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries. The college has more than 110 full-time and part-time faculty and staff members. The college’s English and professional teaching team is composed of teachers who have the background of studying abroad, can teach in Chinese and English, have solid professional knowledge and master advanced international teaching concepts and methods, so as to ensure that students enjoy high-quality educational and teaching resources. Besides, there are five or six excellent foreign language teachers and more than 20 foreign experts all the year round who usually come from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, etc. While imparting knowledge to students, improving their language skills and professional levels, they also provide a multi-cultural communicative environment, so that students can get familiar with the environment as soon as possible and shorten the adaptation period abroad. At the same time, IC has introduced five to six first-class full-time spoken English teachers and over 20 specialists from UK, USA, Canada, Australia and other English speaking countries all the year round.
IC has been running 5 Sino-foreign Educational Cooperation Programs ratified by MOE, that is, two 4-year undergraduate programs in Biology and Environmental Sciences and two 3-year undergraduate programs in Accounting and Business Management with the University of Greenwich, UK, and undergraduate programs in Food Science and Engineering with the University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA. There are two programs approved by the Department of Education (DOE) of Hunan Province for the undergraduate course of international education, namely, the undergraduate program of Agricultural and Forestry Economic Management, Food Science and Engineering with the University of California, Fresno, USA.
In addition, there are also inter-university exchange projects with Oregon State University, University of Oregon and University of Minnesota Delux, USA; University of British Columbia, Brook University, Canada; and University of South Australia, Australia. The Administration Offices in charge of the operation of these joint programs have been set up to supervise and ensure teaching quality, to provide consultation and guide of studying abroad for students.
Since its foundation in 2003, IC has enrolled students in Hunan Province for 16 years. Since 2014, it has officially enrolled undergraduates from other provinces in China. Since the first graduates in 2006, the pass rate of IELTS for students studying abroad has reached more than 70%, the pass rate of visa for students studying abroad has reached 100%, and the rate of studying for master's degree in overseas universities has reached more than 90%. More than 700 students have gone abroad to further their studies. Almost 600 students have received master's degrees from foreign universities. More than 100 students are studying for master's and doctoral degrees in foreign universities. Most graduates work in the UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Changsha and other locations with a wide range of working areas like administrative office, banking, security exchanges, civil aviation, taxation, education, publishing, foreign trade, medical treatment, machinery manufacturing.
Since 2006, leaders from MOE and the DOE have visited IC for many times to inspect and investigate Sino-foreign Educational Cooperation Programs and they have agreed on the normalization and characterization of IC in Sino-foreign Educational Cooperation Programs, and highly valued the education idea, teaching quality and teaching team building of IC. In December 2013 and July 2016, two research projects on the training and teaching reform of Sino-foreign Educational Cooperation Programs were awarded the Hunan Teaching Achievement Award successively. Sino-foreign Educational Cooperation Programs were successively awarded the Teaching Achievement Prize of Hunan province. In December 2014 and November 2015, the undergraduate education programs of Biological Science and Environmental Science passed the assessment of MOE successively. In 2016, IC participated in the Hunan Foreign-Related-Education English Talent Competition and won the first prize of the group and individual. In January 2018, the undergraduate education program (Food Science and Engineering) with the University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA, was approved by the MOE, which is an important achievement of IC in the 13th Five-Year Plan.