The predecessor of the College of Foreign Languages was the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Section of the Basic Courses Department. Starting in 1993, it enrolled junior college students majoring in Economic and Trade English and was renamed the University Foreign Languages Department. In July 1999, Shandong Agricultural University merged with Shandong Hydraulic Engineering College, and the Shandong Forestry School was incorporated as well to form the new Shandong Agricultural University. Foreign language teachers from the three institutions jointly established the College of Foreign Languages.

Since its founding, guided by the development strategy of One Core with Two Wings, Institutional Governance, Moral Cultivation for College Elevation, and Cultural Prosperity for College Vitality, the college has continuously upgraded its schooling conditions, achieved rapid progress in disciplinary development and faculty building, greatly lifted standards in teaching and research, and delivered distinctive and outstanding results in student organization work.

The college is equipped with a full range of experimental teaching facilities, including intelligent language labs, Business English training rooms, virtual simulation labs, simultaneous interpretation booths, translation training rooms, intelligent recording and broadcasting studios, satellite receiving rooms, audio recording and editing studios, e-commerce live streaming studios, and transmitting stations. Its foreign language learning resource database, professional software and books can fully meet diverse demands of students across all majors and the whole university for multilingual learning, proficiency examinations and overseas study preparation. The college expands international partnerships and runs undergraduate exchange programs with four universities in Japan and Russia. It is a designated selection institution for the Chinese Government Scholarship Program jointly administered by the China Scholarship Council and the Russian government.

Disciplines & Faculty

From a single junior college major in Economic and Trade English at its inception, the college has gradually built a well-structured, multi-level academic system covering four undergraduate majors: English, Japanese, Russian and Business English, ranking among the top foreign language colleges of agricultural universities nationwide. At present, the college operates four science and technology platforms, one featured English disciplinary base, and one landmark educational and practical base for language services.The secondary master’s program in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics was approved in 2003 and opened for enrollment in 2004. The Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) program obtained official approval in 2021 and began recruiting students in 2023.The English major was designated a university-level key discipline in 2003 and a university featured major in 2005. It successfully passed the national undergraduate teaching assessment organized by the Ministry of Education in 2006, was listed as a key supported major under the Shandong University Distinctive Campus Initiative in 2013, classified as a Category A undergraduate major with provincial financial funding in 2014, and recognized as a Shandong Provincial First-Class Undergraduate Major in 2020. The Business English major was awarded the title of Shandong Provincial First-Class Undergraduate Major in 2021. All four undergraduate majors of the college qualify students for postgraduate recommendation without entrance examinations.

The faculty team has expanded from over 30 members at the college’s founding to 104 staff today, including 6 professors, 43 associate professors, and 23 teachers holding or pursuing doctoral degrees, forming a high-caliber teaching team with balanced age, professional title, academic degree and disciplinary distribution. The college hires 3 to 5 native foreign teachers of English, Japanese and Russian on a long-term basis.Faculty members have undertaken more than 20 national, provincial and municipal research projects, including the National Social Science Fund Chinese Academic Translation Projects and humanities and social science projects sponsored by the Ministry of Education. They have published over 10 translated monographs and more than 100 teaching and research papers, many of which appeared in core foreign language journals.

International Exchanges

The college actively promotes international exchanges and has signed cooperation agreements with five overseas universities including Yamaguchi University and Hiroshima University in Japan, and Perm National Research University in Russia, implementing student exchange and mutual credit recognition schemes. Over the past five years, a total of 108 undergraduates have studied in Japan and Russia, while more than 50 alumni have pursued master’s and doctoral degrees at prestigious institutions such as Waseda University, Kyushu University, Hiroshima University and Tohoku University. A tuition-waiver exchange program with Yamaguchi University has further broadened students’ global vision.

Talent Cultivation

The college currently has 1,145 undergraduates and 22 postgraduates in residence. Adhering to the talent cultivation philosophy of Elegant Foreign Languages College, Bridging China and the World, the college integrates the Culture Plus concept into every stage of student training. Rooted in its student-oriented and disciplinary strengths, it has built a signature education brand titled Language-Based Cultural Growth, Practice-Driven Cultivation under the Culture Plus 1234 work framework, committed to cultivating high-quality interdisciplinary foreign language talents with patriotism, global vision and solid professional competence.In recent years, the college has created distinctive brand activities including the SDAU Star of Hope English Contest, Foreign Language Culture Festival, Peer Tutoring Competition, and Elite Student Cultivation (ESC) Program. Drawing resources from universities, enterprises and local authorities, the college has built a comprehensive extracurricular practical platform for foreign language learning. Students serve as accompanying interpreters and interns at major national, provincial and municipal international events and conferences, contributing to social development, boosting international communication and telling authentic Chinese stories to the world.

A great number of outstanding student models have emerged in recent years: Wei Lijun, Grand Prize Winner and National Third Runner-up of the FLTRP National English Speech Contest; Zhou He, Champion of the 14th National Chinese Japanese Speech Competition; Feng Jieyu, National Gold Medalist and Top 20 Finalist of the English Speech Track in the 2023 FLTRP National College Foreign Language Competition Understanding Contemporary China. More than 600 graduates have pursued postgraduate studies at prestigious domestic universities including Peking University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University and Tsinghua University, as well as top universities in the UK, the US and Australia. Dozens of undergraduates travel to Japan and Russia each year for exchange programs or master’s studies. The average annual employment rate of graduates has reached 90% over the past three years.