Nominees for the People of Distinction | XU Yiying: Cultivating the Soul and Nourishing the Heart to Strengthen Guidance, Accompanying Growth Through Education with Love
Xu Yiying currently serves in the Student Affairs Management position at the Zhejiang University-University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Institute (ZJUI). Since July 2020, she has been responsible for all graduate student affairs at ZUI. Over the past six years, she has adhered to principles while innovating, putting students first. With the dedication of "full-process escort and full-cycle companionship," she has painted a complete picture of graduate student ideological and political education on the "blank paper" of a startup. She has exchanged her "sincerity index" for students' "growth index," becoming the best "Sister Mo" in the hearts of graduate students. In "Sister Mo's Appointment," she listens to every confusion; through the "Building Dreams for the Future, Setting Sail" brand activity, she inspires each student's career planning; and through the practice-based education activity "Speaking of Rural Revitalization in the Name of Youth," she connects students with national sentiment. In university-enterprise cooperation, she builds an integrated education platform for "industry-academia-research-application." Bridging China and abroad and coordinating multiple parties, she ensures Party-building guidance has height, employment services have precision, and spiritual construction has depth. Xu Yiying has proven through six years: the truest sentiment is dedication, and the most beautiful education is navigation.
I. Cultivating the Soul and Nourishing the Heart, Holding High the Torch of Faith, Serving as a "Guide" for Youth Ideals
Fostering virtue through education, ideological and political work comes first. Facing the educational environment of multicultural integration in Sino-foreign cooperative education, she has always insisted on placing ideological and political guidance in the primary position of education, adhering to Party-building navigation, brand empowerment, and practice immersion, to replenish the spiritual calcium of young students and build a solid foundation of faith.
She strictly manages Party member development and education, strictly controls the entry and quality gates, deeply cultivates the red practice education front, and creates the "Speaking of Rural Revitalization in the Name of Youth" brand. She organizes the institute's backbone forces to travel to Jinggangshan, Ganzhou, and other places to carry out red research studies, industry surveys, and public welfare services, measuring the red hot land with footsteps, writing papers on the soil of the motherland. Related stories have been reported by mainstream media such as China Daily. She activates local and international ideological and political resources, using the "Zhu" lecture team to inherit the Zhu Kezhen spirit, and taking the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway and the Hungary-Serbia Railway as starting points. Through the special social practice of the "Serbia Hungary-Serbia Railway," she guides students to stand firm in cross-cultural environments and cultivate national sentiment. She has built an ideological guidance model adapted to Sino-foreign cooperative education, helping young students calibrate their life direction and steady the rudder of thought. Many outstanding graduate representatives have emerged who are deeply engaged in industry, devoted to grassroots work, and pursuing further studies overseas. The practice team she led was nominated for Zhejiang University's Top Ten Teams Award, and she personally received the honorary title of Outstanding Instructor for Zhejiang University Summer Social Practice.
II. Upholding Principles and Pioneering Innovation, Deepening Refined Governance, Serving as a "Dream Builder" of the Education System
Only those who deeply cultivate advance; only those who are good at creating are strong. As a pioneer of the institute's graduate student affairs system from zero to one, she directly addresses the pain points of running a school at a remote campus, breaking out of the traditional transactional work framework. Through institutional reshaping, digital-intelligent empowerment, and multi-party coordination, she drives the improvement of management service quality and efficiency.
With a trinity demand-response mechanism of "grid-based conversations + class-league backbone regular meetings + closed-loop handling of student proposals," she opens up the "last mile" of student demand feedback, achieving a full-chain closed loop of "collection—assessment—implementation—feedback." She solves the problem of scattered information at remote campuses, leading the creation of the "UI Research and Sharing Hub" graduate student information integration platform, breaking down information barriers. She builds a four-party collaborative handling model of "counselor—moral education mentor—supervisor—class-league backbone," steadily resolving risk cases and safeguarding the bottom line of campus safety and stability. Based on the overall development of the institute, she effectively supports the construction of the institute's student source quality and was named an outstanding individual in undergraduate admissions work of the International Campus. From institutional building to digital-intelligent innovation, from risk prevention and control to serving the overall situation, she, as an advanced worker of the International Campus, has built a solid management foundation for high-quality graduate student cultivation.
Practice team in tea fields
III. Educating Through Love, Deepening the Warmth of Education, Serving as a "Confidant" for Student Growth
Education is a warm undertaking, and student work requires even more companionship and the power to ignite students. She insists on dual efforts of flexible care and professional empowerment, integrating sincerity, patience, and attentiveness into every detail of education. She is both a "soother" of student emotions and a "booster" of student development.
The "Sister Mo's Appointment" heart-to-heart talk column she established allows current students and graduated alumni to make appointments at any time and talk about anything, with cumulative heart-to-heart talks exceeding one hundred times, exchanging sincerity for sincerity and true feelings for true feelings. She explores a dual-wheel drive model of "aesthetic education + psychological education," offering aesthetic education classes such as oil pastel and ceramic handcraft, using art therapy to relieve graduate students' research pressure, making education both powerful and warm. She closely monitors key groups such as those with academic difficulties, psychological fluctuations, and family hardships, insisting on early detection and precise assistance. In student thesis acknowledgments and alumni questionnaires, students list her as the teacher who had the deepest impact during their time at school—this is the best interpretation of her "student-oriented, long-term commitment." She continuously hones her professional skills, obtaining multiple qualifications including senior psychological counselor, psychological helping ability certification, and GCDF&BCF career planner dual certification, supporting high-quality educational practice with high-level professional reserves. The "Building Dreams for the Future, Setting Sail" employment education brand she created incorporates peer career planning education into freshman orientation education, integrates alumni resources into employment education, and implements "one person, one policy" tracking and assistance for graduates, achieving precise drip irrigation and targeted empowerment. She coordinates with professors and alumni to expand more than twenty practice bases, relying on whole-chain employment education methods such as industry enterprise campus presentations, field visits to famous enterprises, career planning salons, and establishing corporate scholarships, building a comprehensive career development guidance platform for students. Exchanging the sincerity index for the student growth index, using professional ability to escort student development. She has truly become a good teacher and helpful friend whom students trust, rely on, and cannot do without, and was awarded Zhejiang University's "Student Work Contribution Award."
With original aspiration firm as a rock, persistent effort achieves lasting success. After six years of frontline dedication, she resonates with the institute's graduate education cause, practicing the mission of fostering virtue through education in an ordinary position, accompanying cohort after cohort of students to grow and shoulder responsibilities with responsibility and love.
Group photo of students on the steps of the building