【Words from a Distinguished Teacher】

• Place virtue first, put students at the center, and take character formation as the foundation;
• Do not dwell on success or failure—give your all, do your best, and respect both what you can and cannot achieve;
• Embed values guidance in the transmission of knowledge, and cultivate a sense of national responsibility through professional education;
• Break down disciplinary barriers, remove bottlenecks, address real challenges, and give “invisible wings” to the cultivation of New Agricultural Sciences talents.

Rooted in teaching with an unwavering original aspiration and guided by a people-centered approach to education, Professor Li Xinhong, Vice Dean of the School of Agriculture and Biology, has long been dedicated to frontline teaching from the lectern. She faithfully fulfills the mission and responsibility of fostering virtue through education and nurturing students through teaching, with a steadfast commitment to cultivating a new generation of talents equipped with solid academic foundations, innovative capacity, and practical skills—planting “golden seeds” for the New Agricultural Sciences and nurturing pillars of talent for the new era.

With a deep understanding of and commitment to agriculture, she is devoted to teaching reform and faithfully fulfills the mission of educating and nurturing students.

Compared with scientific research, teaching and educating students is a form of implicit yet far-reaching investment, the benefits of which extend beyond students’ present achievements to shape their future development. As educators, teachers should uphold the principle that one must understand both how education thrives and how it fails in order to truly teach, devoting themselves to instruction with sincerity and moral integrity so as to guide students toward sound values and life perspectives. In a comprehensive university known for its strengths in engineering, the cultivation of New Agricultural Sciences talents faces unprecedented challenges. With more than twenty years of teaching experience, Li Xinhong has taught Shanghai municipal first-class undergraduate course Animal Anatomy, core undergraduate course Zoology, and graduate-level foundational course Cell Biology. Throughout his teaching career, he has adhered to a student-centered philosophy, continuously advancing pedagogical reform and fulfilling the mission of fostering virtue through education. By integrating disciplinary frontiers with foundational knowledge and adopting a problem-oriented, case-based teaching approach, he creates an open and inclusive learning environment that highlights students’ active participation and enhances their professional interest and sense of identity. Emphasizing classroom effectiveness and learning outcomes, he refines instructional details, employs modular course design to streamline content, and promotes innovation-driven learning by encouraging students to explore and practice boldly. Through the integration of professional cognition and practical innovation—particularly via veterinary clinical cases—he transforms abstract concepts into applied and career-oriented learning experiences. After more than a decade of reform and practice, students’ learning initiative, course satisfaction, and professional identification have improved significantly. In recognition of his achievements, Li Xinhong has received numerous honors, including the Ministry of Education’s Baosteel Outstanding Teacher Award, the Second Prize of the Shanghai Teaching Achievement Award, the First Prize of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Teaching Achievement Award, and multiple university-level teaching excellence and popularity awards.

Integrating education with research, he enlightens minds like a nurturing spring breeze and empowers agriculture and life sciences students to embark on their journeys toward a promising future.

With agriculture advancing toward appropriately scaled and intelligent development, a central challenge for the New Agricultural Sciences is how to organically integrate value guidance, knowledge transmission, and capability development. Drawing on years of teaching and talent cultivation, Li Xinhong aims to develop interdisciplinary, innovation-oriented agricultural talents with broad horizons, solid foundations, and strong adaptability, and has established a “four-in-one” education framework. Centered on interdisciplinary platforms, he advances case-based teaching and the integration of education with research, expanding students’ knowledge boundaries and elevating their thinking by building on structural coherence and convergence across disciplines. By introducing cases such as porcine heart and kidney applications in human organ transplantation and animal reproductive disorders, he extends learning beyond the classroom, stimulating students’ initiative in foundational courses and fostering innovative thinking. Leveraging programs including the Undergraduate Innovation Practice Program (IPP), the “Nongyao Program,” and the Agri-X (Agriculture–Engineering/Science/Medicine) interdisciplinary fund, he builds a value-guided, virtue-centered cultivation system. Through the deep integration of professional cognition and practical innovation, and via national innovation projects and university–industry joint training, he ensures that 100% of students receive research training, strengthening innovation capacity and professional identity. A tiered research pathway—from innovation projects to theses and publications—has been established. Over the past decade, many students have joined his laboratory as early as their sophomore year; he has supervised seven PRP projects (six rated outstanding), with all nationally guided undergraduate innovation projects rated outstanding. He has supervised more than 20 undergraduate theses, guiding students from literature review and experimental design to execution, data analysis, and SCI publication; students such as Peng Zijun have published multiple first-author papers in CAS Zone 1 top journals. In recent years, four theses were named university-level Outstanding Bachelor’s Theses (Top 1), and two received first prizes at the school level. By embedding value guidance and the One Health concept into professional education, Li Xinhong consolidates theoretical foundations and enhances practical application, empowering agriculture and life sciences students to set sail toward the future. Among his undergraduate mentees, eight received national or Shanghai innovation grants, eight earned national scholarships or municipal honors, and seven pursued postgraduate or direct doctoral studies at leading universities. He also serves as the responsible head of a vice-chair unit of the Agricultural Talent Cultivation Alliance of comprehensive universities, delivering multiple keynote reports on talent development.

Guided by craftsmanship and dedication, she cultivates the fertile ground of scholarship to nurture innovative talents in the agricultural sciences.

Cultivating talent for the New Agricultural Sciences is fundamentally oriented toward serving national strategic needs, responding to the imperatives of industrial transformation and sustainable development, and nurturing a new generation of professionals with strong moral commitment, solid academic foundations, innovative capacity, and practical skills—capable of contributing meaningfully to agricultural modernization, rural revitalization, and ecological civilization. This represents a historic shift in higher agricultural and forestry education: from traditional to modern, from single-discipline to integrated approaches, and from theory-centered learning to practice-oriented service. Guided by the spirit embodied in the line “steadfast in integrity, seeking no fame beyond the mist,” Li Xinhong adheres to a personalized training and management model in graduate education. As Principal Investigator of the Animal Genetics, Breeding, and Reproduction Group, he emphasizes integrated bachelor’s–master’s–doctoral cultivation, aligning research training with national strategic priorities and the resolution of critical “bottleneck” technologies, and embedding capability development within scientific innovation. Upholding a philosophy of care rooted in rigor—firm yet reasoned, evidence-based, and compassionate—he adopts an empathetic approach to mentoring, especially for students driven by utilitarian motives or experiencing psychological challenges, carefully balancing guidance and critique, pressure and support. In practice, he follows the principle of inclusive and individualized education, crafting tailored development plans for each graduate student to strengthen technical competence and execution excellence while broadening academic vision. By breaking disciplinary barriers and promoting interdisciplinary integration, he guides students to tackle biotechnological challenges in breeding, pursue high academic ideals, and apply frontier technologies—such as gene editing and nano-scale antioxidants and antibacterial agents—to disease-resistant pig breeding and animal disease modeling. Under his supervision, many graduate students have published influential research in leading journals across both disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. Among the 15 academic master’s students he has mentored, ten received first-class professional scholarships, eight earned National Scholarships, and nine were named Shanghai Outstanding Graduates. A 2021 graduate, Wen Yi, was admitted to the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program at Kansas State University in the United States, setting a strong example for academic progression and professional development in veterinary medicine. Looking ahead, Li Xinhong remains committed to frontline teaching, deepening educational reform, enhancing talent cultivation, and advancing scientific innovation—faithfully living out the credo that true teachers excel in learning and lead by moral example. Only through persistent dedication can one advance with resolve; only by remaining true to one’s original aspiration can virtue truly be cultivated.

【Profile of a Distinguished Teacher】

Li Xinhong is a recipient of the First Prize of Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2025 Teaching Excellence Award. He is a Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Agriculture and Biology, and a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, USA. He has led multiple teaching reform projects, including the Ministry of Education’s New Agricultural Sciences Talent Cultivation Reform Program and key teaching reform initiatives of Shanghai Municipality, and has received numerous honors such as the Second Prize of the Shanghai Teaching Achievement Award, the Baosteel Outstanding Teacher Award, SJTU’s inaugural “Jiahe” Excellent Teaching Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award, the First Prize of the “Candlelight Award,” and the “Most Popular Teacher among Students” Award. He has also presided over several national and provincial-level research projects, published more than 40 academic papers in Chinese and English, and holds 10 authorized invention patents.

Source: Party Committee Teachers’ Affairs Office; School of Agriculture and Biology; News Center

Translated by: Zara

Proofread by: Rebecca