The Department of Environment and Tourism grew out of the Geography Department in Lu’anNormal TrainingCollege in 1985, until now, it has run for 30 years, which is one of Departments that has a long history and a deep accumulation. We have 5 undergraduate majors: Geography, Environmental Science & Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Tourism Management and Hotel Management. We have 30 faculties, and 24 of them are full-time teachers, among which, there are 4 professors, 9 associate professors, and 6 lecturers; 12 Doctorsincluding Ph.D candidatesand 12 Masters.
We have 2 laboratories in total. The one for Geography & Environment has a GIS room, an astronomical observation room, a drawing room, a geological & geomorphic room, and an environmental monitoring room; the one for Tourism has some special rooms like 3D guide simulation training room; we have large precision instruments like ion chromatography, atomic absorption spectrometry, atomic fluorescence spectrometry and so on. We set practice bases for physical geography in Lushan Moutain, Chaohu Lake, Heaven Village; practice bases for human geography and tourism in Ancient Villages in Southern Anhui - Xidi and Hongcun; practice bases for Tourism in high star hotels in Kunshan, Yangzhou. Also, we set a Base for Lu’an Tourist Education and Training together with Lu’an Tourism Bureau.
As great importance is attached on specialty and discipline construction, Human Geography was listed as a provincial key discipline. Geography is one of the key disciplines in the school, and Tourism Management is one of the 4 Special Personnel Training Zones as well as the provincial Comprehensive Reform Pilot Major. In the recent 3 years, teachers of our Department have undertaken over 50 research subjects, and have published more than 100 papers in academic journals, with 10 of then collected by SCI/EI. Also, we set a research platform for researching Dabie Mountain in West Anhui, and made achievements in Industry-University-Research.
We stressed on cultivating students’ practical and innovative abilities, and as a result, students of our Department have won many national and provincial prizes from 2013. Over 150 students have passed Guide Certificate Test, consisting of over 80% in Lu’an.
Our graduates were acknowledged and welcomed by employers for their high comprehensive qualities, solid professional foundations and strong practical abilities. We provide talents for domestic well-known institutions and universities every year. The students who majored in Geography have a high rate for passing Postgraduate Entrance Examination, which ranks top in the university, and the figures are 26%,39%, 31% in 2015, 2016 and 2017 accordingly.
