Formerly known as Foreign Languages Department, which was founded in 1978 as one of the oldest departments of Chengdu College (Chengdu University) and began to enroll undergraduate students in 2003, the Faculty of Foreign Languages & Cultures was established in 2006, authorized to confer the English bachelor degree from 2007, ranked the first and only one to offer Thai Language Education for undergraduate students in Sichuan Province in 2008, and has been approved to open the undergraduate program of Business English in 2012.
Apart from some second foreign language courses, such as Japanese, French, Thai Language, etc., this Faculty is devoted to the system construction of foreign language disciplines of its own characters by taking English specialty as its fundamental, Thai major as its features, and college English education reform as its focus. In this Faculty, there are 87 full-time teachers in total, including nine professors, 19 associate professors, and 50 holders of either Master degree or above (eight PhD candidates included). What’s more, it has employed foreign teachers from various countries, such as the United States, Thailand and other countries. Thanks to the efforts of all the teachers, a number of provincial (ministerial) research projects have been conducted, and various provincial and municipal scientific research or teaching achievements made.
This Faculty is committed to the cultivation of "quasi-professional” foreign language talents with inter-disciplinary knowledge and practical expertise by means of taking the development of their cross-cultural communication ability as the core, the cultivation of their professional qualities as the cornerstone, and the international learning platform and vocational training programs as the two wings. In addition, this Faculty tries to explore an innovative way of foreign language talents training featured by its “internal + external co-working” mode, with the internal one based upon the version construction to arouse the students’ inner impetus in learning, and with the external one taking the joint college-government-enterprise college running and students learning and training in target language countries as the vehicle.
As the leading faculty of the "International Education Cooperation Platform” of Chengdu College (Chengdu University), this Faculty has established the “Thai Language and Culture Center of Chiang Mai University”, the "International Electronic Tourism Research Center”, and a number of overseas training bases. Meanwhile, it is one of the first council members of Chengdu High-tech Call Center Association, and has the honor to win the title of “2011 Best Strategic Support Unit” by Chengdu Translators Association.
In 2006, this Faculty initiated the construction of class vision in higher education institutions in China. In March 2009, the Online Translator Training Project jointly run by this Faculty and Holland Lighthouse Group (Chengdu) was listed in 2008 China’s Excellent University-Enterprise Cooperation Examples compiled by the National Ministry of Education. In the same year, this Faculty pioneered in bringing in the "3 + X" mode, having launched the Project of Linguist Translation Experimental Class. In the past three years, a total of over 1000 teachers and students have participated in the base training or contributed to translation volunteering for various international conferences and events held in Chengdu, such as the EU-China Partenariat, the World Fusion Energy Conference, Asia Investment Forum, China International Software Summit, Western China International Expo., etc. Up to now, more than 100 students have participated in overseas learning or training programs, and nearly 20 teachers engaged in overseas advanced studies and exchange programs.
