School of Foreign Languages (SFL) of Shanghai University of Engineering Science (SUES) was founded in 2016. Its predecessor was the Department of Basic Education, which was established in 1978. In order to adapt to the development of the University, the Department of Basic Education was renamed School of Fundamental Studies in 1995. In order to comprehensively deepen the reform of the University, further improve the discipline level of foreign languages and literature, and better support the construction and development of SUES, SFL was established by merging the Department of College English and the Department of Applied English of School of Fundamental Studies. Relying on the University’s engineering education resources, the School focuses on SUES’s philosophy of building a high-level modern engineering application-oriented university with characteristics. Under the guideline of “mastering languages, majors, culture and application”, the School emphasizes the interdisciplinary integration of foreign languages with humanities and science and technology disciplines, and cultivates versatile and application-oriented translators with solid foreign language foundation, extensive cultural knowledge, proficient foreign language communication skills, relevant discipline knowledge and international vision, in order to meet the new needs of the economic and social development of the country and Shanghai region.
SFL currently has 78 faculty members, including 67 teachers who specialize in teaching. Among them, there are 5 professors (6%), and 15 associate professors (19%); 47 teachers are with master’s degrees (60%) and 28 with doctorate degrees (36%); the master’s and doctoral ratio of faculty reaches up to 96%. More than 80% of teachers have overseas learning experiences. The educational background structure, professional title structure and age structure of the faculty are reasonable, with young and middle-aged teachers as the backbone, and with strong potential for development. Many of the faculty members have won the honorary titles of “Pace-setter in Shanghai’s New Long March”, “Outstanding Teacher of Baosteel Education Fund”, Shanghai Municipal Award for Bringing up Talents, Outstanding Educator of SUES, Outstanding Teacher of SUES, May 4th Youth Medal of SUES, etc.
SFL consists of 6 divisions: Department of Translation and Interpreting, Department of College English, Department of Applied English, Language Laboratory, Office of Students’ Affairs and School Office. The four-year undergraduate program of translation and interpreting began to enroll students in 2016, and has enrolled international students since 2017, with 246 students currently. At present, SFL is responsible for the teaching and talent training of the translation and interpreting majors of SUES, and also undertakes the teaching tasks of public basic courses at different levels, such as undergraduate, graduate and continuing education. SFL always takes stabilizing teaching order, improving instruction quality and highlighting teaching characteristics as the center of all work. Over the years, SFL has formed a set of effective teaching management system and scientific and reasonable quality assurance system, which plays a very important role in ensuring the instruction quality.
Striving for “ideals and beliefs, moral sentiments, solid knowledge, and benevolence”, faculty members of SFL actively contribute to the construction of the SUES’s features, high-level optimized development, and all-round education. In recent years, SFL has achieved fruitful results in teaching, scientific research, academic competitions, and student employment. In terms of teaching achievements, the School has completed 2 Shanghai key undergraduate course construction projects and 14 SUES teaching construction projects, built 2 SUES first-class courses, won 2 SUES teaching achievement awards, and published 6 textbooks. As for the teaching competition, the teachers have won a series of awards: 1 second prize and 1 award for the best teaching resources in the national semifinal of FLTRP’s “Teaching Star” Competition; 1 grand prize, 1 first prize and 3 second prizes in the national semifinal of the FLTRP “Teaching Star” Competition; 1 second prize and 1 excellence award in the Shanghai Young Teachers Teaching Competition; 1 second prize and 1 third prize in the “SFLEP Cup” National College Foreign Language Teaching Competition; 4 first prizes in SUES Young Teachers Teaching Competition; 2 of them won the title of SUES Outstanding Teachers; 1 course was awarded the title of “Top Ten Demonstration Courses of Curriculum Ideology and Politics” at the university level.
In terms of scientific research, 176 papers have been published in CSSCI journals, GCJC journals and other publications; 2 National Social Science Fund projects, 1 Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Science project, 1 Shanghai Philosophy and Social Science project, and 8 enterprise consulting projects have been approved; 19 monographs and translated works have been published.
In terms of academic competitions, SFL students have won 1 national second prize, 5 national third prizes, and 15 grand prizes, 63 first prizes, 269 second prizes and 453 third prizes at provincial and municipal level in various academic competitions such as National English Competition for College Students, “FLTRP ETIC Cup” English Public Speaking/Writing/Reading Contest, China Universities Debating Championship, National English Translation Competition for College Students, and “SFLEP Cup” National College Students’ Intercultural Competence Contest (Shanghai).
In terms of student employment, SFL actively explores the cooperation mode of “university-enterprise linkage and collaboration”, and has established university-enterprise cooperation relations with 11 enterprises such as Shanghai Grouphorse Translations Co., LTD., Shanghai LocaTran Translations Co., LTD., providing students with professional guidance internship, interpretation and translation internship, and summer coop positions.
SFL gives full play to its own disciplinary and program advantages, and actively integrates into the internationalization process of SUES. In the process of promoting the internationalization process and accessing international high-quality education resources, SFL has carried out extensive and diverse forms of exchanges and cooperation with foreign universities to enhance the level of education, in order to cultivate talents with international vision, understanding of international rules, able to participate in international affairs and international competition. SFL has established cooperative relations with St. Cloud State University, USA and Weber State University, USA to carry out projects such as student exchange and credit mutual recognition.
In the future, following the “new three steps” goal established by the University and through cooperating closely, working hard, forging ahead and advancing bravely, all faculty and students of SFL will make continuous efforts in talent training, discipline construction, program construction, international cooperation and other aspects, and strive to make new breakthroughs, which will make greater contributions to SUES to create a first-class high-level modern engineering application-oriented university with characteristics.
