An Introduction to the Department of Basic Sciences

An Introduction to the Department of Basic Sciences

          The Department of Basic Sciences – University of Agriculture and Forestry – Thai Nguyen University was officially re-established in May 2006 pursuant to the Decision No 83/QĐ-TCCB issued by the Director of Thai Nguyen University. Its main strategy is to teach general knowledge of basic sciences to students from different faculties and different programmes of the university (including full-time regular, part-time and international students). Before that re-establishment, the department was founded in February 1970, concurrently with the foundation of the university. Throughout the 45-year history of development, the department has been given different names such as the Department of General Subjects, the Department of Basic Subjects and Foreign Languages, and the Department of Cultivation and In-service Training. Since its re-establishment in May 2006, the lecturers of the department have been organized into 5 groups of subjects and been in charge of teaching 8 courses namely mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, politics reasoning, sociology, Vietnamese and physical education.

          One of the most important people who has great contribution to the development of the department is Lecturer Nguyễn Công Vịnh who was the Dean of the department from 1970 to 1983. Since 1970 with only 5 lecturers, it has been developing rapidly both in terms of quantity and qualification of the staff. Before 1990, the department had 2 associatedoctors namely Lê Văn Lấn and Trần Vũ Tư; from 1990 to 2006, the department had 1 associatedoctor whose name is Nguyễn Đăng Đức; and now it has 2 associate professors (Nguyễn Thị Dung who is the current Dean and Lương Thị Hồng Vân who is apart time lecturer), 3 PhDs (including 1 part time lecturer, 8 PhD candidates who are studying in domestic and foreign institution, 31 masters and 13 bachelor.

Lecturers used to work at the department of Basic Sciences on the occasion of reunion of Lecturers  and students in the 8^th training course

          In recent years, together with the development of the university, the department has had considerable contribution to the enhancement of staff qualification for the duty of training, researching and transferring of technology. At present, the department staff are in charge of teaching credit-based general knowledge courses including 18 subjects (36 credits) namely advanced mathematics, probability and statistics, applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, analytical chemistry, general biology, molecular biology, botany, practical Vietnamese, sociology, principle 1, principle 2, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, revolutionary path of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and physical education (1,2,3). Every year, the average workload of the staff is from 25,000 to 30,000 hours for regular full time students and 15,000 hours for in-service students of different faculty and programmes in the university.

          In parallel with training, researching has also been attached great importance to and has had some good results such as 6 ministry-level studies, 5 university-level studies and 107 department-level studies from which many journal articles have been published including 8 international in which 6 are within ISI, 6 on specialized journals, and 23 on university journal as well as conference papers.

          All that effort of the department staff has been recognized with awards by different organizations of different levels:

1. Certificate of Meritawarded by the Labour Union of the Education Sectorto the department for “The outstanding achievements in Labour activities during 2011-2012”.
2. Certificate of Merit awarded by the university’s Youth Union to the department for “The outstanding achievements in Youth activities and movements during 2012-2013”.
3. Certificate of Merit awarded by the Director of Thai Nguyen University to the department for “The outstanding fulfilment of the workload during school year 2010-2012”.
4. Certificate of Merit awarded by the Labour Union of Thai Nguyen University to the female staff of the department for “The good fulfilment of both house work and institution work by the female staff during 2011-2012”.
5. Certificate of Merit awarded by the rector of the University of Agriculture and Forestry to the department for “The championship in the first competition for the renovation of credit-based teaching methodology in 2011”.
6. Certificate of Merit to the female staff of the department for “The good fulfilment of both house work and institution work by the female staff during 2008-209”.
7. Certificate of Merit awarded by the director of Thai Nguyen University to the female staff of the department for “The good fulfilment of both house work and institution work by the female staff during 2006-2010”.

          Those achievements result from the paramount concern of the university, the effective leadership of the Communist Party’s departmental committee, the department leaders, and the sharing effort and responsibility of the whole staff members. These results will become the bases for our staff to keep up with that performance and to achieve more success so as to contribute to the development of the whole university.

 The lecturers and staff of the Department of Basic Sciences, 2014

Dean Asc. Prof.Nguyen Thi Dung