Central University of Nationalities (中央民族大学, pinyin: Zhōngyāng Mínzú Dàxúe) is a small national level university in located in Beijing, China designated for minority nationalities. It is colloquially known as Míndà in Putonghua and CUN in English.

Academic programmes

The university awards undergraduate-level degrees in over 40 academic subjects, usually after four years' study. Postgraduate programmes are offered for about half of these. Young people from the dominant Han group are the largest single ethnicity amongst the 8,000 or so students. However, the minority nationalities provide the great majority of the students and over one-third of the academic staff.

By far the strongest research area is anthropology and ethnology, which is the mainstay of its small publishing house and journal. In 2001, the People's Daily described it as "China's top academy for ethnic studies." [1] Other respected departments are the dance school and the various minority language and literature departments. Other subjects are often studied from the ethnic minorities' perspective, e.g., biology courses may focus on the flora and fauna found in ethnic minority areas of China.

CUN is the pinnacle of a national network of institutions maintained by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, although academic standards are also monitored by the State Education Commission, which means some students end up sitting two sets of exams. Its main partners in the English-speaking countries are the University of East London, United Kingdom and the Oregon University System, USA.

History

The Chinese Communist Party first established a Nationalities Institute in its Civil War stronghold of Yan'an, in central China, in October 1941. In 1950-1952, this was merged with other ethnolinguistic and sociological departments, including elements of Peking University and Tsinghua University. The result was the Central Institute for Nationalities, which officially opened on 11 June 1952. The Institute was assigned a large area of parkland on the outskirts of Beijing (south Haidian) as its campus.

Both the Yan'an and Central institutes were intended to train cadres (officials) for ethnic minority areas, as well as providing a liberal arts education for promising students from the minorities. Their research was and is intended to support the policies of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. In its early years, the Institute was caught up in the sensitive issue of classifying China's vast population into official ethnic groups, until the Cultural Revolution made conventional education almost impossible.

With the advent of Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up policy (c.1978), the Institute went through considerable changes. On the down side, it lost most of its campus to a variety of development projects and it is now in a heavily built-up area. Financial pressures have led to a rapid rise in student numbers, particularly of Han students (who are usually more qualified and wealthier). A major building programme is currently (2004) underway to facilitate this. A more long-term difficulty is posed by the legacy of so-called Han chauvinism in previous centuries.

On the other hand, the Institute expanded into science subjects during the 1980s and achieved university status on 30 November 1993. In 1999 it was granted "key university" status as part of the 211 Project, which was supposed to identify one hundred Chinese universities which would play leading roles in the 21st century. Meanwhile, Haidian has continued to develop as Beijing's main university district. CUN is now adjacent to the National Library of China and Zhongguancun, which local media refer to as "China's silicon valley"[2]. There is a cluster of ethnic minority shops and restaurants around the University, although many more disappeared (c.2000) when Beijing's Uighur community was dispersed.

See also

Other universities for ethnic minorities in the People's Republic of China:

• Dalian University for Nationalities
• Guangxi University for Nationalities
• Northwest University for Nationalities
• Qinghai University for Nationalities
• South-Central University for Nationalities
• Southwest University for Nationalities
• Yunnan University for Nationalities

Reference

The Central University for Nationalities (undated, but c.2000). Beijing: CUN International Relations Office. A prospectus for Chinese and foreign students; the source for almost all of the dates and statistics in this article.

External links

• Official website: English and (Chinese)
• Unofficial website by a former student
• Feature of the "University for Ethnic Communities"