The Party branch secretaries, who attend the first training course of the Party School 2010, headed for Changsha and Shaoshan, Hunan Province, for a two-day memorial trip from April 15 to 17 under the leadership of the vice minister of Organization Department of SJTU Party Committee Ji Bo. They visited Chairman Mao Bronze Statue Square, paid banquet tribute to the statue, and collectively reviewed the oath at the CPC joining ceremony. Later, they visited Mao Zedong’s former residence and the Comrade Mao Zedong Memorial, as well as Liu Shaoqi’s former residence, Yuelu Academy, Hunan Provincial Museum, and so on.

The aims of the trip were to strengthen the party spirit education of the Party branch secretaries, and to enhance communication amid Party branches. All along the trip from Shaoshan to Yuelu Academy, the secretaries looked back on the life of Chairman Mao, with all sorts of feelings welling up in their mind. “Chairman Mao lived a simple life. He always put the country and its people at the first place but never thought of his own material comforts, and we are a thousand miles far from his greatness. As Party branch secretaries, we should pay as much attention as possible to the life of ordinary Party members and teachers, and concern more about the construction of the Party branch,” said Du Shouji, secretary of the Party branch of Department of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, touched by a pajama with 73 patches possessed by Chairman Mao. All the secretaries expressed their feelings and thoughts of this trip. They said that they were educated by the revolutionary history, moved by their forefathers’ struggle in the tough years, and affirmed their faith. They promised to carry forward the revolutionary tradition of plain living and hard struggle in SJTU and make it an eternal impetus to build a first-class university.

The training course for the Party branch secretaries were opened on the basis of the spirit of the Enlarged Fifth Plenary Session of the Ninth SJTU Party Committee, with the aim to enhance the construction of learning-type Party branch and to promote the “Projects to Demonstrate the Innovation of the Construction of Party Branches at Basic Levels”. The first courses opened in March with 38 secretaries of Party branches at basic levels, including 12 branches from Medical Schools and affiliated hospitals. According to SJTU Party Committee, such courses will be held twice a year in the Party school from 2010 so that every SJTU Party branch secretary will have access to it in three years.