A few days ago, a long-awaited snow brought us to the threshold of the new year of 2011. It has become our tradition at this symbolic time to remember our friends far away and to look ahead to the future. On behalf of Xi’an Jiaotong University, the Jiaotong University Alumni Association and myself, I would like to extend my warmest greetings and best wishes to all our students, faculty and staff members, and alumni at home and abroad, as well as to all those who care about our university and who support its development, including the parents of our students.

Looking back on 2010, we can see that joint efforts made by all our departments and faculties have contributed to a symphony of wide ranging advances and developments for our university. Our students, faculty and staff members have continuously strived to improve the quality of education we offer by actively putting into practice the State Guidelines for Medium-to-long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (the National Education Plan), and implementing the principle of “Human-centered Education” in our daily teaching and studying activities. This year also coincided with the beginning of the third phase of Project 985, and saw accelerated progress toward our goal of building XJTU into a top-tier, world-class university. A succession of significant meetings and conferences held during the course of the year—including conferences on faculty development, teaching, and the development of the humanities and social sciences—elicited great enthusiasm from all the teachers and students who participated, and marked a new stage in the profound changes our university is undergoing. A new advance in our approach to education was signaled by a series of initiatives, including the implementation of our new undergraduate program, the establishment of an experimental class for highly qualified students in the basic disciplines, innovations in our graduate programs, and increased emphasis on sports spirits.

We also experienced success in our key basic research, which achieved several significant break-throughs, including the important paper “Mechanical behavior of heterogenous materials, deformation behavior and the size effect of nanoscale materials”, published in the distinguished British journal Nature, and included among the top 10 university level scientific advances of the year in China. Another key research finding, resulting from a collaboration between researchers from XJTU and from a number of overseas institutions, was published in Science, another internationally recognized journal. The year also witnessed the establishment of a number of international-level scientific research institutes, notably, the Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), the International Center for Dielectric Research and the Global Environmental Change Institute. These international-level institutions are sure to attract top rank scientific talent from around the world to our campus. Our university puts equal emphasis on ‘home-grown’ talent and on talent recruited from elsewhere, in keeping with the idea that “the key to success in the building of teams of teachers is the development of all our teachers.” In 2010, thirteen overseas professors were selected for the One-thousand Talents Project, four professors were awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and three were recruited for China’s Ten Million New Century Talents Project. The research team on the “Mechanical behaviors of light-weight non-homogeneous media” project benefitted from its designation as a 2010 Creative Research Group of National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The university’s scientific resources and social services continued to collaborate with local government agencies, enterprises, research institutes and social groups, in accordance with the new national and regional socio-economic development policy, with outstanding results. By winning three 1st Prizes in the National University Science Awards and four Gold Medals at the National Invention Exposition, XJTU demonstrated that it has become a model institution in the area of intellectual property rights and one of institutions making the most important contributions to the State Grid. This year the university was awarded three new National Programs on Key Basic Research Projects (973 Program), as well as a number of National Key and Special Research Projects and National High Technology Research and Development Programs(863 Program). The number of National Natural Science Foundation Projects awarded, and the number of patents granted both represent new historical highs for the university.

In 2010, XJTU strengthened the development of grass-roots academic teams, promoted a climate of learning, made full use of its rich resource of faculty and students to further the university’s development and reform, gave special attention to the quality of life, and inspired and encouraged innovation. Three new National Level Teaching Teams were formed, eight new National Elaborate Courses were created, and four new Special Disciplinary Demonstration Centers were established. We are pleased to see that the quality of our students continues to improve, and that XJTU is becoming a model for student employment. Our students have worked hard and have received numerous awards and honors in various science competitions, including mathematical modeling, in cultural and social practices, and in other areas. At the same time, the building of the Students’ Cultural and Physical Education Center has been capped, and the renovation of the residential areas of the campus for the benefit of faculty and staff members has progressed well. In keeping with the university’s general development plan and its proposed knowledge-innovation campus, we plan, in 2011, to speed up the development of our Qujiang Campus by beginning construction on a group of teaching and research buildings, and plan to establish 3000 apartments with a total area of 360 thousand square meters for faculty and staff members. China XD Group donated 12 million RMB for the development of the discipline of electrical engineering. Cyrus Tang Foundation donated 3.5 million USD to support programs for our most outstanding students.

Among the unforgettable events of 2010, we must also include those days and nights of earthquake relief work for the people of Yushu. Our teachers and students showed their great concern and compassion through their donations to help rebuild not only the earthquake stricken area of Yushu but also the Zhulinguan Central Primary School damaged by the mud-rock avalanche in the area of Danfeng.

2011 marks the first year of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan of China, the beginning of the 2nd ten years of the present century and the 115th year since the founding of our university. Let us all join hands and keep on striving and pioneering in all areas to insure that our university will continue to prosper as it moves forward towards its bright future.

I sincerely wish you all an auspicious, most happy, and most wonderful New Year!