One of the major awards related to the construction of the advisor team in Shanghai is the “University Advisors of the Year in Shanghai”. Each year, ten university advisors of the year are selected from 50 candidates through the appraisal organized by the Education, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress (SCSMPC) and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, and through such sections as preliminary university assessment & recommendation, initial material review, online voting, on-site defense, expert review and comprehensive assessment. Recently, Nian Daqi, advisor of the School of International Economics and Trade, has become the first faculty member of Lixin to receive this honor.
What kind of advisor is he? With such a question in mind, the reporter interviewed the colleagues and students of Mr. Nian.
Dedicator to ideological and political work
As we all know, advisors not only are the foundation of the ideological and political education of university students, but also constitute an important force in the daily management of university students. For the students, advisors are also life coaches, brothers and sisters excellent both in conduct and learning, faithful coordinators, trustworthy listeners and informal “psychologists”. Advisors are always under a high work intensity, and they also devote a lot of time and energy to their work. In08ust, 2006, Nian Daqi, a tall and handsome fresh master graduate from East China Normal University and a prudent, reflective, dedicated and visionary person, joined our School of International Finance and became a full-time advisor.
Mr. Nian told the reporter that he had always upheld one belief at work, that is, the art of ideological and political education lies in discovering the highlights of every student, and in motivating, awakening and encouraging their self-confidence in self-development. He always attaches great importance to the performance of students in professional fields, actively arouses their passion in research, and effectively promotes interactions between students and professors. According to their strengths, he also voluntarily recommends them to various on-campus student clubs, and helps them conduct all kinds of extracurricular activities. The first year of his joining our university also witnessed the launching of the highland construction education direction by the university. For the purpose of helping students to quickly get involved with this innovative, rigorous and high-standard learning environment, he actively sought for their ideas about new class building, joined hands with them to explore new learning methods, and helped them complete their important learning and career plans. Li Shaoyue, a student of the Highland Class currently living and working in the U.S., told the reporter that, so many years after graduation, these details would still come back to him clearly, that the students of the Highland Class would always try to contact Mr. Nian in each student reunion, and that they all missed him so much.
Nian Daqi once had a chance to transfer to an administrative post, but he was willing to stay at the frontline of student work. In fact, he has been doing this job for a decade. For students, Mr. Nian is like a tireless “pendulum” that always moves in cycles around the “rhythm” of their growth. Each year after the admission of freshmen, he always talks to them one by one, and tries to learn about their difficulties and strengths, encourage them to study and help them overcome difficulties. He has been a guide to freshmen in both study and life. When students are about to graduate, he always occupies himself with the collection of employment resources and recommendation of jobs. To those students choosing to take part in the postgraduate entrance exams or go abroad for further study, he is like a big brother, trying to help them with all that he knows and all that he can do and to elevate them to a new height in their life. He’s also willing to help them free their mind from their worries, and cares deeply about their physical and psychological health. Quoting the words of Liu Ruojing, a student of International Business Class I of class 2017, “he is like a big brother in our mental life”. Lang Jiayi, and her friends in International Business Class I of class 2014 all call him “Brother Qi”. The days and nights, and the summers and winters, of the past decade have witnessed the hard efforts he has made to exclude the difficulties and anxieties of nearly 1,000 students and to facilitate their healthy growth. Taking moral education as the priority of his work, he always tries to explore new paths of ideological and political education, and always stays at the frontline of ideological and political work.
Cultivator at the battlefront of academic research
Nian Daqi advocates the research-oriented development of ideological and political work, and aims to promote the joint development of teachers and students. According to him, doing research is not only required by the growth and development of advisors themselves, but also by the effective conduction of work. To become a guide and mentor for students in their healthy growth, advisors need to study the features of university students as a group, and, especially, in the current context of the era of new media, they must be able to guide the direction of public opinions via new media and to have some dominance and control over new media platforms. This is something about which Mr. Nian has a profound experience.
In 06e, 2010, in the comprehensive launching of YIBAN (www.yiban.cn) interactive community at the university level, one of the most important task posed by university-wide student work was how to enhance user stickiness and platform interactivity. To accomplish that task, he began to draw up questionnaires to analyze and study how to use YIBAN platform to promote teacher-student communication, enhance user stickiness and guide the thoughts of students. After systematic analysis and study, he summed up many strategies that could improve the activity and popularity of YIBAN platform among teachers and students, such as creation of new media networks for self-education, guidance of values through in-depth teacher-student communication and online interactions between teachers and students. Based on related studies and accumulated experience in the early stage, in 2013 he successfully applied for and completed a special research project of moral education practice in Shanghai.
In the past decade, in addition to his care for and guiding students, he has also applied for and completed three provincial research projects in the fields of YIBAN, new media-based teacher-student interactions and network information crisis through scientifically reflecting on his student work, analyzing new changes in work objects and work environment and studying the rules of ideological and political work.
Practitioner with theoretical attainment
Nian Daqi attaches great importance to the depth of theoretical researches, and always pays close attention to new tasks in educational practice. According to the data released by China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), university students constitute the principal users of new network media, and university campuses are gradually presenting the feature of network life. In this case, an urgent new task in front of him is to engage students through virtual and real interactions means, such as YIBAN, WeChat, MicroBlog etc., to bring into play the positive role of new media in terms of teacher-student emotional communication, public opinion guidance, value concept guidance and so forth, and to limit and eliminate the challenges posed by new media to the dominance and leadership of advisors. To accomplish such task, he has furthered his researches by means of questionnaire survey, interview and so on, applied the research results to the YIBAN building of classes under his leadership, and received many honors like “Top 10 YIBAN Network Classes in 2012”, “Second Prize in the 1st Excellent YIBAN Election”, etc. Based on previous researches, he successfully applied in 2013 for a special Humanities and Social Science project of the Ministry of Education, i.e., “An Empirical Research on the Interaction Strategies between University Teachers and Students in the E-era - Taking YIBAN as an Example”, a research devoted to exploring the strategies and paths of effectively promoting teacher-student interactions. On the basis of completing the special Humanities and Social Science project of the Ministry of Education in 2013, he further focused his attention on the new media field, continuously carried out a series of in-depth researches, and successfully applied for a Shanghai Sunshine Program project in 2015 (“Research on the Development and Guidance of the Network Self-organization of University Students in the New Media Era”) and a special Humanities and Social Science project of the Ministry of Education in 2016 (“An Empirical Research on the Network Information Crisis of University Students in the New Media Environment and Its Intervention Strategies”). The results of these continuous in-depth researches in the new media field have played an important guidance role in terms of the construction of class collectives, the progress of league and student work, the ideological and political guidance of students, etc. To be specific, the Youth League branch of International Business Class I of class 2017 under his leadership was granted the “Award of Highest Network Popularity” and the “Award of Highest Vitality” in the Class & League Cultural Exhibition in our university, and strove for the title of “Shanghai 05 4th Red Flag Youth League Branch” in 2016, which significantly improved the popularity and vitality of our new media platform.
Mr. Nian also attempts to combine academic research results with practical work, promote practice with theories, and open up new ways of ideological and political education, and has realized positive interactions between student work and academic research in terms of academic innovation guidance, new media platform operation, featured Youth League Committee building, campus culture construction, etc. It stands to reason that he has become the first successful applicant of a special Humanities and Social Science project of the Ministry of Education (ideological and political education), and the initiator of “E-station for Party Members”, the first comprehensive innovation project of network-based Party construction in Lixin.
Thinker with practical experience
Nian Daqi believes in the research-oriented development of ideological and political work, and voluntarily starts his transition towards a “practical research-based” advisor. On the one hand, he has theoretically summarized his work experience and practices proven to be effective by practice, and timely created research results that can be applied on a wider scale; on the other hand, he has used these research results to guide the practice of his student work, and gradually turned from a “practical” advisor into a “practical research-based” advisor.
He has applied his research results to practical ideological and political work, and actively practiced the “professional” and “occupational” development path of advisors proposed by the Ministry of Education. The “professional development” of student work is based on the expertise of advisors in student work. To achieve that, he has summarized a set of values and methods from his ideological and political work, utilized his research achievements to deal with and solve work-related problems, and striven to make the transition from a “practical” advisor into a “practical research-based” advisor.
He found that, after applying his research achievements to student work, the vision of students has been broadened, and the ideological and political work has become more targeted, with high student trust and more obvious effect. Based on new media research results, he introduced YIBAN, WeChat and many other means to conduct “I speak for core values” and a diversified range of other themed educational activities through the integration of online/offline interactions; through positive guidance, he has fully brought the subjective initiatives of students into play, effectively conducted ideological and political education in a "hidden but influential" manner, and aimed to realize the optimization of educational process and the maximization of educational results.
Based on the results of the special Humanities and Social Science project of the Ministry of Education, he has realized the organic integration of YIBAN with Weibo, WeChat and other new media, and constructed a YIBAN-based big platform for teacher-student interactions. Relying on the “depth” and “solidity” of his theoretical accumulation, he uses the most popular “WeChat style” and words to express his opinions, and aims to create a “internet language”-based language system, realize the guidance of students’ thoughts and the positive interactions between teachers and students and become a mentor for students in their growth.
Nian Daqi also fully utilizes research results to broaden the work space of advisors, and explores the new carriers of the ideological and political work of university students on the platform of scientific innovation activities. He actively absorbs student teams into the project team sponsored by the Ministry of Education, improves their innovation quality, brings their indispensable role into play, and launches the “innovation elite training camp” project to cultivate students’ interest in academic innovations and their ability to make innovations. He has successively guided more than ten students in successfully applying for university student innovation & entrepreneurship projects at both Shanghai and national levels, and the students instructed by him in Shanghai “Knowledge & Action Cup” University Student Social Practice Contest have won the excellent project award.
Extraordinary harvester at an ordinary post
As the idiom goes, “a man of true worth attracts admiration.” In the past decade, Nian Daqi has won many titles of honor in succession, like Shanghai Municipal Award for Cultivating Talents (Shanghai Yucai Award), Shanghai “Sunshine Scholar”, Best Advisor, Excellent Party Member, "Best Teacher in My Heart", Excellent Instructor in Summer Social Practice and so forth, and the classes under his leadership have also won many honorary titles, like Advanced Class Community, “Shanghai 05 4th Red Flag Youth League Branch”, Class Community with Excellent Academic Atmosphere, “Top 10 YIBAN Network Classes in 2012”, “Top 10 League Day Activity”, Featured Class and League Culture, etc. Staying at a post at the frontline of student work, he dives into researches on new changes in ideological and political work objects and work environment, actively innovates his work ideas, explores the rules of ideological and political work, practices the “professional” and “occupational” development path of advisors with actual acts, and strives to become a “practical research-based” advisor. Relying on YIBAN and other new media platforms, he engages in in-depth reflections and profound researches on the application fields of ideological and political work, and has led the special Humanities and Social Science projects of the Ministry of Education in 2013 and 2016 and the Shanghai Sunshine Program project in 2015. Through integrating research results and practical work, on the one hand, he theoretically summarizes his work experience and acts proven to be effective by practice, and tries to find out the inspiration and direction of research; on the other hand, he utilizes his research results to deal with and solve new work-related problems, and striven to realize positive interactions between student work and academic research in terms of academic innovation guidance, value concept guidance, featured YIBAN activities, etc.
Under the spotlight, he is humble and low-key, “staying true to the mission and forging ahead”. As an advisor, Secretary of Youth League Committee and Party Secretary of the Department Student Branch of the School of International Economics and Trade, he is fully confident about future development.
