On March 4, Shenyang Institute of Technology convened the 2026 Spring Semester Work Conference, which fully summarized the achievements of previous work and systematically deployed the development tasks for the new semester, charting a course for the university to deepen the integration of industry and education and advance the reform of application-oriented education in the AI era. Chairman Wang Zhaobao, Party Secretary Hu Xiaomei, and President Li Kangju delivered speeches at the conference. Vice President Xu Ying presided over the meeting, which was attended by university leaders and more than 1,000 faculty and staff members of the whole university.
Wang Zhaobao made the 2026 work deployment under the title AI-Driven Work Conference on Promoting Faculty and Student Entrepreneurship – and Breaking Through the Last Mile of Industry-Education Integration, laying out a blueprint and clarifying the path for the university's high-quality development in 2026, and issuing a mobilization call for all teachers to take proactive responsibility and strive for excellence. He emphasized that the current wave of artificial intelligence technology is surging forward, continuously spawning new technologies, fostering new forms of business, activating new demands, reshaping the employment pattern and opening up new employment tracks. Standing at the historical juncture of the country's high-quality development, the university has taken the initiative to recognize, adapt to and seek changes, taking deepening reform as the driving force and transformation and development as the path. It has carefully built a high-quality platform to empower the growth of faculty and students and support their entrepreneurship, laying a solid foundation for the integration of industry and education and faculty-student entrepreneurship.
During the winter vacation, in just one month, the university made steady and solid progress, establishing two more industrial colleges – the KUKA Welding College and the AIT Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial College, continuously weaving a dense education network for the integration of industry and education and university-enterprise collaboration. The School of Economics and Management completed the renewal of 4,000 sets of desks and chairs, improving the effectiveness of education through meticulous quality enhancement and creating a high-quality environment for faculty and students. He specifically mentioned the teachers leading industry-education integration projects, stating that the university provides comprehensive and full-chain support to fully ensure the effective implementation of the projects, demonstrating the university's courage and determination to support teachers' entrepreneurship.
Looking ahead to the key work of 2026, Wang Zhaobao clearly stated that project-based teaching will serve as the core starting point for the annual work. Based on the industrial development needs driven by AI, the university will integrate real industrial projects into the entire teaching process in an all-round and in-depth manner, and fully promote the new education model of "learning with certificates and learning with salaries" for students. This model will realize the organic unity of learning, practice, certificate acquisition and income increase, truly achieving "learning by doing, doing by learning, gaining from learning and benefiting from doing". The chairman stressed that all preparatory work for the university has now been completed, with everything in place and only waiting for concrete actions. This is a critical juncture for all faculty and students to unite as one and seize the opportunity to forge ahead. He hoped that all teachers would take proactive actions, actively participate in the university's reform and development and the practice of industry-education integration, empower the university's high-quality development with solid work, and jointly draw a new blueprint for the growth of faculty and students and the take-off of the university.
At the conference, Party Secretary Hu Xiaomei delivered a speech entitled Vigorously Carrying Forward the Spirit of Educators and Forging Excellent Teachers for the New Era, emphasizing that teachers are the foundation of education and the source of its prosperity. The university must thoroughly implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on education, vigorously carry forward the spirit of educators, adhere to teachers' ethics and conduct as the primary criterion, and fully implement the professional conduct norms for teachers in the new era. Teachers' moral performance will be taken as the primary requirement for teacher qualification access, recruitment and introduction, professional title evaluation and appointment, evaluation and reward, and application for talent projects. The university will effectively give play to the exemplary leading role of advanced models such as national models of teaching and educating people and "Most Beautiful Teachers", strengthen the construction of a good teaching and learning atmosphere, and guide teachers to integrate teaching and educating people with self-cultivation, so as to establish oneself by virtue, pursue learning by virtue, teach by virtue, and influence and drive students with their personal character and exemplary conduct.
President Li Kangju made a comprehensive deployment of the university's work in 2026 under the title Upholding Integrity and Innovation to Strengthen Connotation, Empowering Education with Intelligence to Embark on a New Journey – Striving to Create a New Situation for Spring Semester Work. He clearly identified six strategic plans as the core starting points, focusing on six key initiatives: breaking through with specific projects, building intelligent agents, developing new industrial colleges, tackling the enrollment challenge, improving training quality, and integrating industry and education. The university will fully break through the "last mile" and solidly do a good job in the two core tasks of Shenyang Institute of Technology: first, firmly uphold the main business of teaching and consolidate the fundamental task of educating people; second, realize secondary entrepreneurship relying on industrial colleges. Adhering to the educational philosophy of training excellent teachers and teaching students well through real enterprise projects, he required all teachers to take the initiative to benchmark advanced standards, keep pace with the development, and take on responsibilities with concrete actions. The entire university will strive to write a new chapter in the high-quality development of the university with a more high-spirited attitude and a more pragmatic style, and create a new situation for the spring semester work with solid achievements.
At the conference, Xu Ying delivered a report on the construction and development path of the new industrial college under the title AI Empowerment, Faculty-Student Collaboration, Industry-Education Integration. She deeply introduced the construction ideas and development plan of the new industrial college from three aspects: background and significance, positioning and mission, and empowerment and win-win results. The core strategy for the development of the new industrial college is the "Three Ones" Project, which will transform teachers from "pedagogues" to "double-qualified experts", upgrade the university from "running a school" to "symbiotic development", and build a regional strategic platform.
Yang Yue, Assistant to the President and Director of the Academic Affairs Office, delivered a work report on the layout and development path of teaching work in 2026. She elaborated on four aspects: industrial colleges – integrated scenarios and the four-stage evolution path of teaching in modern industrial colleges; training system – the foundation of abilities and how the training system can become the cornerstone of teaching reform; project-based teaching – the main line of courses and connecting a course group with a real project; talent cultivation – the ultimate goal including teacher development, student growth and value transformation. The report clarified the core tasks of teaching work and promoted the in-depth adaptation of teaching to industrial needs.
Yao Jian, Director of the Modern Educational Technology Center, gave an introduction to the new intelligent agent innovation project under the title From Technical Support to Intelligent Empowerment, presenting the university's exploration and practice in the teaching application of AI intelligent agents. The intelligent agent platform acts as the "soil", providing underlying technical capabilities and tool support to lower the threshold for innovation; the memory intelligent agent serves as the "root system", accumulating knowledge systems and providing data support for upper-layer applications; course tutors act as the "branches and leaves", reshaping the teaching interaction model and providing continuous learning support; digital humans serve as the "fruits", producing high-quality teaching resources and forming reusable assets.
At the conference, Hu Xiaomei and Li Kangju issued appointment letters to the leading group members of the new industrial college and the School of Continuing Education.
The convening of this spring semester work conference has drawn a clear road map for the university's development in 2026. Taking this conference as an opportunity, all faculty and staff of the university will unite as one and work solidly with the spirit of upholding integrity and innovation and the determination to overcome difficulties. They will further advance the reform of education and teaching empowered by AI, continuously deepen the integration of industry and education, implement the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, strive to write a new chapter in the high-quality development of the university's application-oriented education, and contribute more educational strength to the economic and social development of the region!
Translated by Basic Courses Department
