The past 10 years of the new era marks a milestone in the development of Beijing. As such, how can we answer the question of our times --- “what kind of capital to build and how to build it?”  How can we tell well the story of the development of the capital in the new era?

To promote broader ideological and political education, CUEB started the course on Serving the Development of the Capital in the New Era (hereafter the Course) on 16 November.

Zhou Yuhong, Deputy Secretary and President of the General Party Branch of the School of Marxism Studies, delivered the speech themed “Draw Blueprint for the Development of the Capital in the New Era”. Following President Xi’s footsteps in Beijing, Zhou introduced Xi’s visions toward the capital development in the new era and how Beijing had achieved the transformation and upgrading. Zhou also introduced the importance, teaching aims, teams, plans, and requirements of this course.

This course is set to study, publicize and implement the spirits of the Party’s 20th National Congress and the 13th CPC Beijing Municipal Congress. As a response to the call of Beijing Municipal Party Committee and Beijing Municipal Education Working Committee, the course plays a critical role to introduce the Party’s innovative theories to students. This was an elective course for undergraduates and postgraduates, available for 200 applicants at most. Surprisingly, only within 5 minutes, no vacancy was left.

With the development of the capital in the new era as the core, the course in this semester will encompass 6 special lectures and 2 offline lessons to introduce the fruits achieved during the process of building Beijing into a center for scientific discovery and technological innovation, for international exchanges, and for cultures. It will also demonstrate Beijing’s stories in building a platform to gather talents and ideas from the world, promoting digital finance and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development and put forward prompt solutions to public complaints.

In order to ensure the quality of this course, Vice Secretary of CUEB Party Committee Xu Fang played a leading role to conduct several seminars with many departments so as to refine the course syllabus. With these efforts, they built the special database for dynamic teaching and came up with diverse teaching methods, such as special lectures, offline lessons and social research. Xu also organized a teaching team composed of CUEB leaders, government leaders from Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality and Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, internal and external experts of CUEB and teachers of the ideological and political course. Among them, there were delegates to the 20^th CPC National Congress and famous teachers in Beijing.

The course also encompasses offline lessons called “Feel Beijing”. This will help students know more about great changes in Beijing through a variety of activities, such as visiting Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall, Beijing Municipal Administrative Center Exhibition Hall, Zhongguancun National Innovation Exhibition Center, Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, Capital Museum, National Museum of China and Lize Financial Business District.

Xu emphasized that this course was set to promote broader ideological and political education with CUEB characteristics. Therefore, CUEB will combine the course with its specialized disciplines and introduce external excellent teaching resources to the campus. All the teachers and students can receive broader ideological and political education while learning and practicing the spirits of this course and then further enhance their senses of responsibility to serve the capital development.

CUEB is a Beijing Municipal high-level research university, with Economics and Management as its key disciplines. About 70% of its undergraduates are from Beijing and over 80% of the graduates work in Beijing. The course will guide students to serve the capital development through further exercising Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and then serve Beijing as the Four Centers (namely, national political center, cultural center, center for international exchanges, and center for scientific discovery and technological innovation). Fostering students’ sentiments to love families and the motherland in practices, the course shall encourage students to assume responsibilities to serve the development of the capital in the new era.