The graduate education at Northwest A&F University has a long history, which can be traced back to 1941.Since the implementation of the degree system in 1981, the university has become one of the earliest establishments of higher learning who can confer Master’s Degree and second for Doctor’s. Approved by Ministry of Education, in August 2003, Northwest A&F University established Graduate School on a trial basis. And on July 6, 2007, it was officially approved.
Northwest A&F University has 7 state key disciplines and 24 key disciplines at provincial or ministerial level, 11 post-doctoral research stations. The university has 11 first-class disciplines of PhD degree authorizations, which offers 71 PhD programs and 18 first-class disciplines of master’s degree authorizations, which offers 105 Master’s programs. Currently the graduate programs involve 11 disciplines, including Agriculture, Science, Engineering, Economics, Management, Law, Education, Medicine, History, Philosophy, and Literature. There are 4 professional Master’s degrees provided by the university: Professional Master’s Degree in Engineering, Professional Master’s Degree in Agricultural Extension, Professional Master’s Degree in Veterinary Medicine, Professional Master’s Degree in Landscape and Gardening. Besides, the university also confers master’s degree for on-the-job study of HEIs and secondary vocational school teachers, hence forming a multi-channel, multi-specification and multi-level postgraduate education mode. Currently the university boasts two academicians of CAS or CAE, seven jointly-appointed academicians, 236 PhD and 623 master supervisors. There are currently 7100 postgraudates including 5573 postgraduate students with academic degrees enrolled at Northwest A&F University. So far four dissertations were chosen among the National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations.
With President Sun Wuxue as the dean, the graduate school is composed of the Dean’s Office, Postgraduate Recruitment office, the Instruction Office, the Degree Supervision and Conferring Office and Postgraduate Affairs Office which undertake the duties of postgraduate admission, cultivation, management as well as discipline construction, development and implementation.
Throughout the construction of an internationally renowned research university with tight integration of teaching, research and enterprises, the university, aimed at the cultivation of innovative talents, will continue to exert the efforts to educate more high level creative talents with superior quality through highlighting the development of disciplines as well as improving the postgraduates’ cultivation quality.