ECUST Held 2026 Freshmen Opening Ceremony

East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) recently hosted its 2026 freshmen opening ceremony at the Fengxian Campus, with a live broadcast streamed simultaneously to the Xuhui Campus. The event gathered over 10,000 new undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the university.

Chuanhai Jiang (Secretary of the CPC ECUST Committee), Fuzhen Xuan (President), Tao Li (Deputy Secretary of the CPC ECUST Committee), and Huifeng Wang, Weihong Zhu, Haifeng Yan, Liming Zhao and Wenli Du (Vice Presidents) attended the ceremony. Yue Gong (Deputy Secretary of the CPC ECUST Committee) presided over the event. Also present were Jiangwen Xia (Director of the Organization Department, Member of the CPC ECUST Standing Committee), Hua Chai (Director of the Publicity Department, Member of the CPC ECUST Standing Committee), heads of schools and administrative departments, faculty and staff representatives.

“From this day forward, you embrace a new shared identity as members of the ECUST community. This identity is rooted in heritage and bound by responsibility,” said President Fuzhen Xuan. On behalf of the university, he extended a warm welcome to all incoming students and delivered a keynote speech entitled “Harnessing Intelligence for Innovation, Cultivating Strength for Long-term Progress.”

Xuan reviewed the university’s glorious history and core mission. Founded in 1952 to serve the nation’s industrial development needs, ECUST pioneered programs such as antibiotic manufacturing engineering and contributed technologies to national projects. Over its 74 years of development, the university has cultivated more than 450,000 graduates and numerous engineers, with generations of ECUST alumni devoting themselves to boosting China’s industrial development.

In the face of rapid advances in artificial intelligence, Xuan outlined three expectations for the new students.

First, he encouraged them to strengthen their innovation capacity by building solid disciplinary foundations, learning to raise targeted, high-quality questions for AI tools, and verifying AI-generated results with scientific principles. He also called on students to accumulate cross-disciplinary experience through research, innovation competitions and industry practice.

Second, he urged students to develop sustained concentration and perseverance. Drawing on ECUST’s long-standing tradition of research and social commitment, he encouraged them to cut down distractions from mobile phones and algorithm-driven content, and devote their best time to in-depth academic exploration.

Third, he called for greater empathy and social awareness. Students were guided to engage with people and society at large, understand industrial needs, develop practical skills through industry-education integration, and deepen their understanding of China through social practice.

Xuan urged students to uphold the university motto, “Diligence, Factuality, Aspiration and Virtue,” align personal growth with the needs of the nation and the times, and develop the competencies required to take on responsibilities in the new era.

Twin undergraduate freshmen Jiayu Zhou and Jiaying Zhou, shared their aspiration to engage in intelligent manufacturing research and contribute to the development of China’s key major equipment. 

Yajun Wang, a postgraduate student from the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, pledged to pursue academic truth, uphold independent thinking and strictly abide by academic integrity norms

International student Mohan Lin from Russia shared her journey from learning Chinese characters and reading Dream of the Red Chamber to developing an interest in the guqin (a traditional Chinese zither). She hoped to build a Chinese language education platform in Russia and share Chinese stories with a wider audience.

Prof. Jing Jin from the School of Mathematics, a recipient of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Youth Science Fund (Category A), encouraged students to pursue meaningful work and align their ideals with national strategi cneeds through interdisciplinary and long-term commitment.

Xiulei Jiang, Chairman of Suzhou Shincell New Materials Co., Ltd., encouraged students to deepen their expertise, broaden their horizons and integrate personal development with national development.

Zihan Liu, who returned to the ECUST campus after several years, said she would continue to deepen her expertise. Ye Wang said he would remain enthusiastic and grounded, while Yifan Kang looked forward to four years of diligent study and personal growth.