Present
The university was chosen as a Project 211 institution in 1996. In 2002 it signed an agreement with Ministry of Education and Beijing Municipal Government, and became the 10th university on the list of Project 985 to get special support from the Chinese Government, aiming to be a world prestigious university.
During its centennial celebration in 2002, an asteroid discovered in 1996 was named after the university as 8050 Beishida.
After a special visit of Premier Wen Jiabao on May 4 of 2006 to Beijing Normal University, the Chinese government implemented the Fee-Waiver Policy for teacher training programs in six normal universities that are supervised by the Ministry of Education, including Beijing Normal University.
The university also lays distinct emphasis on educational equality. The 2009 demographic composition data shows that 40% of its enrolled students are from western China, almost one third are from rural areas, a quarter are from low-income families, and ethnic minorities comprise for more than 10%.
Read more about this topic: Beijing Normal University
Famous quotes containing the word present:
“To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When a language creates—as it does—a community within the present, it does so only by courtesy of a community between the present and the past.”
—Christopher Ricks (b. 1933)
“There was a literary gentleman present who who had dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as they had come out—and who was a literary gentleman in consequence.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)