Qu Li, professor, Ph.D. Supervisor, is currently Director of BISTU International Cooperation Department, Director of Office for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs, and Dean of BISTU School of International Education. In addition to a series of honors awarded by former Ministry of Machinery Industry such as “young teachers of excellence”, she has also been granted the first prize and the second prize of municipal-level teaching achievements and the second prize of outstanding achievements of the 14th Session of Beijing Philosophy and Social Sciences Assessment. Some textbooks where she was the editor in chief have been evaluated as state-level elite textbooks. As the superintendent for a municipal level teaching team and a municipal level elite module, she is the principle lecturer of a municipal level high-quality module and has won the honor of the outstanding supervisor for Entrepreneurial Design Competition for Students of Beijing-based Universities. She has been granted the MOE sponsorship for studies of new arts and sciences reform and municipal sponsorship for undergraduate teaching reform in higher education. Business Administration, the program she has been supervising and managing, was listed in the first cohort of potential first-rate programs by the State.  

A strict and loving teacher for all students 

At School of Economics and Management, Qu Li is known for her rigorousness in learning and teaching. She was once viewed by students as “the teacher with the most strict requirements”, meaning that she specially cherishes each grade point she would give students for their performances. During early years when class-performance has yet included in overall marks, Qu Li has already conducted similar reform on “Modern Production Management”, a module she delivered at the time. She designed a score of appraisal items and requested students to present group-based survey reports, confirm subjects of the report on their own, and make courseware on their own. The final mark composed of 70% class performance and 30% final exam grades. With a large quantity of questions on final exam paper, students could barely find any room of cheating. It turned out that almost all students would have to make sound preparations much early before final exams. Complaints here and there were heard from students who had expected to get good grades via just-before-final-exam preparation. After some time, Qu Li made a survey on this. Surprisingly, the majority of students quite agree to this practice and they held that they have truly learned a lot and witnessed great improvement in their competences. It convinced Qu Li that the try was worth her efforts.  

Students often go to Qu Li for advices and suggestions, though they comment that she is quite “tough”. A number of students remain frequent contacts with her years after graduation. When talking about her students, Qu Li is always like counting her own treasures and never hides her pride. Once she found that a student was often absent from classes. She conducted long, sincere talks with the student some day after class and was told that he invested too much effort in a start-up despite strong objection from his parents. With patience and experience, Qu Li explained to him about social responsibility and family responsibility. Later, he came back school and finally got the degree. “Teachers are just like parents. We are all expecting our students to grow up and to make it in their lives. We are always happier to see progresses of students.” Qu Li said.  

“Teaching means imparting knowledge and cultivating students. In essence, cultivation is more important. Sometimes inadvertent remarks could offer great help for students’ future.” Qu Li has been following this guideline and tried her best to be a guide and pilot for students. For many times she has been granted the honor of outstanding individuals in education, role model for teachers’ code of conduct, outstanding CPC member, etc. Business Administration team that she headed was also awarded a series of honors such as outstanding team of Beijing in education, outstanding team of BISTU in teachers’ code of conduct, etc. She organically embeds ideological education in imparting knowledge and effectively cultivates students in respect of patriotism. The postgraduate module she delivered was evaluated as a BISTU elite one. And quite some students she has supervised now are working in frontiers of poverty alleviation, combating covid pandemic, and other causes.  

Student-centered reform and team building 

“I was quite touched by a student. She produced wonderful performance in practice session yet performed quite badly in theoretical session. In the end, she has to regrettably drop out. I have made up my mind since then to develop practice session of modules and conduct reform on teaching. I know it is my mission and responsibility.” Speaking of her original aspiration in educational reform, Qu Li looks quite determined.  

With practice session closely linked to corporate practices and reform on assessment, Operations Management, the module where Qu Li is the principle lecturer, has been appraised as a municipal-level elite module and a high quality module of Beijing Municipality. And the textbook in where she worked as the deputy editor in chief was granted the honor of state-level elite textbook. Meanwhile, she reconstructed practice teaching system for business administration modules and her efforts have won special prize and first prize of BISTU in educational achievement as well as first and second prizes of Beijing in educational achievement. In response to the call for construction of new liberal arts, “Reform on talent cultivation in business administration under the context of new liberal arts”, the project she chaired, was assessed as a reform project by MOE and a project of reform and innovation by Beijing. Qu Li also actively builds a number of platforms for students in respect of self-management and in-and-out-of class interaction while helping establish an association for corporation operation simulation to motivate students in learning. Her students have produced outstanding performances in a number of state-level and provincial-level academic subject competitions.  

Sound reform on education cannot go without a team of excellence. Qu Li comments that “virtue-based screening process is quite important in team building. We are a team of mutual trust, inclusiveness and mutual encouragement” when sharing her experiences in teaming building. During the period of working at School of Economics and Management, she spared no efforts to building outstanding teams to center on teaching reform and improve students competences. Her team Business Administration was honored as an excellent team on municipal level. She has also been constantly improving faculties of the School via a number of means. With her efforts, several teams of the School were appraised as excellent ones on municipal level and quite some faculties have won honored on state or municipal level. She also has been granted the honors such as outstanding young teacher of the former Ministry of Machinery Industry, backbone teachers of Beijing Municipality, outstanding principal lecturer in municipally-supervised universities, etc. As academic pacesetter, she has led the team to rapid progress in quality improvement and the program she was responsible for--- Business Administration--- was assessed as a potential first-rate program on state level.  

Qu Li has sorted out all possible resources to push forward development of academic disciplines at the School. As a key figure, she and team members have established MBA program and master program in industrial engineering. As the superintendent for master program in industrial engineering, she has witnessed the program growing into a mature one with good quality. As Dean of School of Economics and Management, she took the lead in accreditation process and has achieved phased success. “All efforts in teaching reform, team building, and academic discipline construction are actually centering on cultivation of students. The student-centered principle is where we are based. Agreement and trust from students make me more aware of the weight and responsibility on my shoulders.” Qu Li said.  

Wholehearted Service for Society 

When covid-19 pandemic containment was facing with a severe situation in 2020, a number of enterprises in intelligent manufacturing took the lead in resuming production based on their automated production lines, intelligent factories, and online maintenance platforms. Qu Li then saw the great potential of intelligent manufacturing. She then published “High Quality Development Empowered by Intelligent Manufacturing” on People’s Daily, the largest newspaper of China. Her essay was reprinted by various media. Yet it was not the first time that she has produced advices and suggestions for social and economic development.  

The monograph “Studies on Operation Model of Knowledge Service Industry” by Qu Li and Yin Jielin, with lean manufacturing in Toyota production style as the research object, proposed “five kinds of waste” in operations of knowledge service, conducted analysis on formation process of value chain in knowledge service organizations, and produced development strategies and suggestion for knowledge service organizations. It has important implications for enhancing operational efficiency and lowering operational cost in knowledge service industry. Based on these merits, the monograph became a winner for the second prize in the 14th Session of Beijing Philosophy and Social Sciences Assessment and the second prize in science and technology innovation of service industry by China General Chamber of Commerce.  

Qu Li holds that service provided with industries, corporate development, and class-teaching deserve equal attention. She has chaired over 40 projects sponsored by Beijing Municipal Social Sciences Foundation, Beijing Municipal Educational Commission, Beijing Municipal Commission of Science and Technology, etc., published over 50 high level journal articles, and around 20 monographs. In addition to revision of 2 state-level standards that she chaired, she also contributed to establishment of a number of industry standards and association standards. As a renowned expert in quality management, she has been invited to assess various quality awards all around China, offer on-site diagnosis of corporate management for over 100 enterprises, and provide appraisal for quality innovation projects. Meanwhile, she has successfully introduced the best corporate practices into class teaching, which has effectively linked students’ knowledge learning with corporate scenarios and greatly facilitated their understanding of theories.  

While working as the Dean of School of Economics and Management, Qu Li remained conscientious and attentive. Providing quality service with faculties and students and promoting school development was her prime focus. She offered opportunities for young faculties in staff development and truly cared about each faculty, staff, and student. With joint efforts of the whole School, academic research hit new heights and achieved breakthrough in terms of sponsorship from National Social Sciences Foundation. The number of high level papers published is in constant increase, in addition to phased success in AACSB accreditation and a number of programs assessed as first-rate on state level. Qu Li also tried her very best to utilize social resources for school development, i.e., strategic agreements have been signed and carried out with a number of institutions including Beijing Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision and Administration, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing Institute of Metrology, etc.  

“Modest, amiable, lenient, candid, and magnanimous” are adjective words that colleagues, friends, and students would unanimously use to describe Qu Li. For the past 30 years working for education, she has remained true to her original aspiration, devoted herself to education and to cultivation of students, kept dedicated to research, and followed her commitment to serving the people. She has always been a role model in her love and loyalty with educational cause and her noble pursuit of ideals and convictions.