The opening ceremony of SCMU’s 2025 Reading Festival with the theme “Classics Nurture the Heart, Joyful Reading Toward the Future” was held at the Academic Exchange Center on the morning of April 23. Party Secretary Xu Yeqin, Standing Committee Member and Vice President Ma Yutang, heads of relevant administrative departments and schools, and award-winning faculty and student representatives attended the event. Wang Kun, Deputy General Manager of Hubei Xinhua Bookstore (Group) Co., Ltd., participated as a special guest. Vice President Ma Yutang presided over the ceremony.
During the event, the “2024 Annual Reading Report” was released along with the list of winners for “Reader Stars” and “Scholarly School” awards. Secretary Xu presented awards to the “Scholarly Schools”, while department heads presented awards to the “Reader Stars”. Wang Kun and Ma Yutang jointly unveiled the “Recommended Good Books” list.
Award ceremony for “Scholarly Schools”. Photo by Liu Xiao
Undergraduate representative Ma Xiaoyi, graduate representative Xu Dan, and faculty representative Professor Bai Guixi spoke in turn, sharing their reading experiences around the festival theme and encouraging students to love reading, read good books, and read wisely to draw knowledge and strength from books.
Secretary Xu pointed out that the university’s reading festival serves as a powerful measure to thoroughly implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and actively practice the spirit of the 20th National Congress. It is an important approach to building a scholarly campus where students of all ethnicities can learn and grow together, and a vivid practice of guiding young students to strengthen the “five identifications”, establish correct perspectives, consolidate a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, and strengthen cultural confidence. Xu encouraged young students that in an era of rapidly developing artificial intelligence, they should make reading an innate need and a heartfelt passion, using reading as a vessel to navigate the path of knowledge in the new era: to be “deep divers of civilization”, building a solid spiritual foundation through classic readings; to be “ferrymen of wisdom”, expanding cognitive boundaries through interdisciplinary integration; and to be “passers of the torch”, writing new cultural chapters through dedicated practice. He called on all departments to form synergy in jointly contributing to the construction of a scholarly campus, implementing the fundamental task of moral education, and building a culturally strong nation.
After the opening ceremony, Secretary Xu and Vice President Ma visited the library’s reading space dedicated to consolidating a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation and participated in the “Reading Classics Together to Discuss Community Building” reading club with faculty and students. As an innovative practice of deep integration between the library and academic departments, the reading club fully leverages the library’s resource advantages and the distinctive disciplinary features of various schools, carefully creating an open and diverse academic exchange platform that provides faculty and students with a quality space for intellectual collision, knowledge sharing, and collaborative growth. Secretary Xu fully affirmed the significance of the activity, pointing out the importance of carefully studying and utilizing the textbookIntroduction to Community for the Chinese Nation, embedding the sense of community for the Chinese nation deeply in the hearts of faculty and students, and striving to cultivate every student into a firm defender and faithful practitioner of the community for the Chinese nation, contributing SCMU’s strength to the cause of ethnic unity and progress.
Reading club activity. Photo by Liu Xiao
This year’s reading festival, themed “Classics Nurture the Heart, Joyful Reading Toward the Future”, focuses on six major sections: “Setting Sail with Books”, “Sailing the Sea of Books”, “Featured Exhibitions”, “Eternal Classics”, “Reading Together with One Heart”, and “Digital Empowerment”, offering a total of 24 diverse reading activities.
