Zhan Xinyu: A "Student", Exploring in the Scholarship Field

Recently, the winner list of the 16th Award of College Young Teacher of Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation was released, and Zhan Xinyu, associate professor of School of Public Finance and Taxation of ZUEL, received this award, which is the first time for teachers of our school to win a second prize since its establishment in 1986.

A teacher for students, a college for teachers and a peer in academic circle......However, the role I like the most is being a student, said Zhan Xinyu. He thinks that students are full of energy and always curious about new things, and that's why for 11years teaching in our school, he always maintains the mentality and habits of a student, frequently showing up in the library, the dining hall and the study room.

Perseverance in Scholarship

Only one teacher can be recommended to participate in the twice-yearly selection of the Young Teacher Award of Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation on behalf of its colleges. In the evaluation process, teachers are compared in the aspects of class teaching, guide outside class, scientific research project, academic awards despite of their differences in subject category or research field, which makes it one of the most notable and praised award in the higher education field in China. It was really not easy for Zhan Xinyu to stand out in this fierce competition and get the second prize.

As a young college teacher, Zhan Xinyu's academic ability is widely recognized. However, he confessed that he was at first filled with fear about academic research, and it was after reading a larger number of literatures under the guidance of his supervisor that he started to fall in love with academic research gradually. He then reorganized and rethought about what he had learned in the next three years. During his PhD’s studies, he did prospective study on the impact of economic structural adjustment on the supply side like ownership structure, industrial structure, input factors structure and etc on the macro economy of our country and published academic papers on journals like Management World and gained National Social Science Fund project and was awarded “Doctoral Candidate Academic New Talent” by Education Ministry.

After entering School of Public Finance and Taxation, his interest was shifted gradually to the field of “economic effect analysis of macro-fiscal and financial policy” under the guidance of postdoctoral supervisor Yang Canming. He published many papers on journals likeSocial Sciences in China, Journal of Financial Research and etc and had won Hubei social science award and gained National Natural Science Foundation project. He is also a “Distinguished Young Scholar” of our school. Zhan worked hard one step at a time from postgraduate to post doctorate and made academic research an indispensable part of his life.

Study Hard, Practice Earnestly

Books and manuscripts piled up orderly in Zhan’s small workplace. “I use this workplace as an study and I suggest students to study in studying room or the library, which is far more efficient than studying in the dormitory,” says Zhan.In fact, many of his papers and research projects were constructed in this small room. “Submission and rejection are ordinary and bittersweet,” concluded Zhan for the bitter and sweet he tasted on the academic research road though that he had made significant gains. “For so many times, you submit a paper with hope, but was returned with‘revise’, ‘revise’ and ‘revise again’ from the external auditor. You need to be critical, to rethink and revise it again and again to write a good paper,” said Zhan Xinyu.

He formed a rigorous academic attitude in his academic study, which is also his attitude towards life. “Whatever you do, you do it the best or you don’t do it,” said Zhan.

Teach with Method

Except for academic research, Zhan Xinyu is also active in the teaching frontline of Public Finance. From his point of view, Public Finance is about how to spend other people’s money in a way that is most economical and efficient.

In his long time teaching practice, Zhan proposed and practiced the teaching method of three steps of“Yi, Xing, Shen” in Economics education. Chinese character “Yi” is theabbreviation for “Semantic Models”, which means the basic meaning and practical guideline of economic principles. “Xing” means “geometrical model”, which can be used to show the relationship between important economic variables in most cases. And “Shen” stands for “mathematic models”, which is important because the economic principles are basically the quantity change relations between economic variables.

Three steps mean that you should combine these three parts in the teaching process without neglecting any one of them. Students who had been in Zhan’s Public Finance classes said: “Teacher Zhan always draws models on the blackboard and combines them with examples to explain economic phenomenon, which is very direct and interesting. There’s never awkward silence or nodding off in his class.”

Zhan always remind postgraduates to “stand up”, bearing the country in mind and to “stick to the ground”, studying classic literatures and concerning social and economic problems from four dimensions, which are finance, economy, politic and law. He sticks to the principle of “double tracks go hand in hand”. One is the “long track”, which means that researches that requiredifficult methods and are time-consuming will be conducted by himself instead of postgraduates; The other is the “short track”, which means that he will give general directions to postgraduates in such researches that are closely related to social and economic hot spots and provide methods and data that are within the reach of students. For example, his students published 7 papers about “improving the quality of economic growth” on core journals under his guidance. “Teacher Zhou is always willing to listen to other people’s opinions and share his own experiences. He also cares about our mental activities and gives us more encouragement than pressure,” said Wang Suli, agraduate student of grade 2015.

For winning the Young Teacher Award of Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation, Zhan holds that on the one hand it is lucky that his hard working was recognized, on the other hand it is the attitude of “care not the gains but only the progress” that made him win. “We can’t know how what we learned or did will help us in the future right now, butlook back again when you achieved some growth, you may realize that success will come when conditions are rape.