【Words from a Distinguished Teacher】
- To teach is to be learned; to lead is to be upright.
- Teaching and nurturing students is a teacher’s calling—filled with both challenges and joy.
- True education is not about pouring in knowledge, but about igniting the flame of curiosity within students.
In the quiet Mathematics Building on 汤头条污料’s Minhang Campus, there is a distinctive team of educators—rigorous mathematicians and nurturing teachers alike; scholars who publish cutting-edge research in top-tier journals while remaining deeply committed to the lectern. For more than three decades, the Mathematical Analysis Teaching Team of the School of Mathematical Sciences at SJTU has upheld an educational philosophy of “solid foundations, strong interdisciplinarity, and innovation-driven learning,” transforming Mathematical Analysis—often known among students as a “notoriously challenging course”—into a National First-Class Undergraduate Course, and cultivating generations of outstanding talents now active at the forefront of academia and on the front lines of industry.
Innovating Teaching Paradigms: Building Mathematical Bridges for the New Engineering Disciplines
The team has actively explored reforms in calculus education, reconstructing the teaching framework through a “graded and tiered” system to transform Mathematical Analysis from a traditional major-specific course into a foundational public course supporting cutting-edge engineering fields. In the 2024–2025 academic year, the course covered 34 classes and 2,266 interdisciplinary students, fully serving elite talent programs such as the Zhiyuan Honors Program, the Qiangji Program, and Artificial Intelligence initiatives. Today, Mathematical Analysis has become a core pillar in the cultivation of New Engineering talents.
The team has established a dual-track “General–Honors” course system, transforming calculus teaching from a single-track model into a multi-dimensional knowledge network that adapts to the needs of different disciplines. Within this framework, Mathematical Analysis, as the top-tier foundational mathematics course, provides engineering students with rigorous modern mathematical tools such as limit theory and Fourier analysis. By breaking down disciplinary barriers, the Mathematical Analysis Teaching Team has expanded the scope of instruction through the Zhiyuan Honors Program to include engineering and medical students, positioning mathematical analysis as a critical bridge between fundamental theory and engineering practice. Honors courses place particular emphasis on gradient computation and optimization methods, directly supporting frontier fields such as artificial intelligence algorithms and biomedical modeling, and ensuring that engineering students develop a rigorous command of mathematical formulation and expression.
The team places strong emphasis on cultivating students’ logical thinking and inspiring their sense of innovation. By introducing overviews of cutting-edge fields in class, they help students grasp the essence of mathematics. As the lead instructor for engineering-oriented mathematical analysis, Chen Keying skillfully employs everyday analogies to turn abstraction into concreteness—using the concrete to illuminate the abstract—and presents frontier mathematical concepts in a clear and engaging manner. Since 2018, he has served as a Zhiyuan Honors Instructor and is a recipient of the inaugural Excellence in Teaching Award, the Tang Lixin Distinguished Teaching Award, and the “Jiahe” Excellent Teaching Award. He once received an eight-page handwritten letter from students: “Your rigorous yet humorous teaching has given me a deep and clear understanding of mathematical analysis—thank you!” Another wrote, “We use an equation to express our inexpressible gratitude to you: r = a(1 + cosθ)…”—a heart-shaped curve, and the most romantic tribute to a devoted “craftsman of teaching.”
Building on the core content of the course, the Mathematical Analysis Teaching Team extends learning into extracurricular academic practice, forming an integrated “classroom + competition” training model that systematically prepares students for high-level mathematics competitions. In recent years, students have achieved outstanding results in events such as the National College Students Mathematics Competition, the National College Students Mathematical Modeling Competition, and the S.-T. Yau College Student Mathematics Contest. At the finals of the 16th National College Students Mathematics Competition in 2025, SJTU students earned an impressive total of six first prizes, three second prizes, and one third prize.
Tiered and Integrated Training: Precision Cultivation of Top-Tier Talents
Through innovative teaching reforms, the Mathematical Analysis Teaching Team has played a pivotal role in the cultivation of top-tier talents. The team has established an interdisciplinary, integrated “2+1” semester training system and designed a teaching model characterized by “one syllabus, two tracks, and three tiers.” First, a unified syllabus was developed, with the first two semesters delivered through unified instruction for both mathematics and non-mathematics majors. Second, a dual-track system of General and Honors Mathematical Analysis courses was implemented, while an advanced, mathematics-major–specific course is offered in the third semester to ensure seamless continuity within the mathematics discipline. Meanwhile, a three-tier instructional structure—Basic, Honors, and Professional—has been established. By combining a unified syllabus with differentiated teaching approaches, the team practices tiered instruction that breaks away from traditional constraints, enabling students of varying abilities and interests to pursue learning pathways best suited to them. These teaching reform initiatives strongly support the University’s “four-in-one” talent cultivation philosophy, forming a replicable teaching paradigm that offers a systematic solution for mathematics talent development and serves as an important model for reform in foundational discipline education.
In terms of textbook development, the team has authored a three-volume series—Single-Variable Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, and Advanced Calculus—forming China’s first “classic–modern” dual-cycle system. The first two volumes serve as general foundational textbooks, while the third reconstructs the theoretical framework within the setting of metric spaces and integrates ideas from modern analysis, providing advanced learning content for majors. After three rounds of classroom implementation and evaluation, the series has demonstrated outstanding effectiveness and has been designated by Higher Education Press as a core textbook for the Basic Discipline Top-Notch Student Training Program.
The team leader, Zhou Chunqin, is the head of the Zhiyuan Honors Program in Mathematical Analysis (Mathematics track). She is a recipient of the Second Prize of the “Candlelight Award” and the Morning Star Outstanding Young Teacher Award. Since 2018, she has served as a Zhiyuan Honors Instructor, was promoted to Zhiyuan Fellow in 2020, and in 2024 was appointed to the “Jiahe” Endowed Teaching Chair for the public foundational course Mathematical Analysis. She pioneered a teaching model that combines process-based assessment with stage-wise testing, helping students grasp abstract concepts and theorems while consolidating their foundational knowledge. She also restructured course assessment by introducing oral examinations, allowing evaluations to better serve both instructional guidance and pedagogical reform, and significantly enhancing students’ motivation and initiative. Through these efforts, she has provided strong support for cultivating high-caliber, innovative mathematics talents. Among her students, Zhao Yue advanced to the finals of the National College Students Mathematics Competition, Yi Mengjia won a first prize in the preliminary round, and Zhang Chilin received an award at the S.-T. Yau College Student Mathematics Contest and later earned a PhD degree from Columbia University.
Devoted to Education, Passing on the Torch—Cultivation Achievements Enrich SJTU
Often dubbed a “notoriously demanding course” by students for its extensive scope, high difficulty, and rigorous standards, Mathematical Analysis is taught by a team composed of 90% faculty who balance both teaching and research. Team members undertake an average of nearly 190 teaching hours per year, yet continue to deliver high-level research output while remaining on the teaching frontline. Over the past five years, the team has led eight national-level research projects and published 84 papers in leading international journals such as Mathematische Annalen, achieving a virtuous cycle between research and teaching. By integrating frontier research findings into classroom instruction—through case-based teaching and focused seminars—the team brings abstract mathematical theories to life and realizes genuine research-led teaching, significantly enhancing instructional quality while stimulating students’ interest in research. Among students mentored by the team, 67% have secured high-level academic placements, with many graduates pursuing further studies at renowned universities at home and abroad. As a representative of the new generation of team members, Deng Shijin—who studied under Professor Wang Weike—received the Shanghai Outstanding Graduate Research Achievement Award (for her doctoral thesis) and gained extensive teaching experience as a teaching assistant during her PhD. After joining the team, she swiftly translated her mentor’s guidance into teaching practice, earning strong student acclaim for her distinctive perspective and engaging instructional style.
The Mathematical Analysis Team is a “dream team” of mathematicians spanning three generations—senior, mid-career, and young scholars—united by a shared passion for mathematics. Professor Qiu Zhaotai, well into his seventies, continues to oversee teaching with unwavering dedication, often saying, “Mathematics is a rigorous art that tolerates no carelessness.” Professor Wang Weike has mentored numerous outstanding mathematicians, including Deng Shijin, embodying through action the educator’s ideal that “peach and plum trees speak not, yet paths form beneath them.” Professor Xie Feng, teaching courses with enrollments in the thousands, leads students to scale academic heights; the doctoral students he has trained have published multiple papers in top international journals. Professor Tao Youshan has received all-A teaching evaluations for five consecutive years, and the honors courses he teaches are regarded by students as a “sacred hall of mathematics.” During periods of campus lockdown, Gu Qilong even spent the night in the classroom wrapped in a thin blanket—only to deliver four consecutive live-streamed lectures to students the next day.
What moves people most about this team is not its dazzling honors, but these warm and human moments: when Professor Wang Weike retired, his students spontaneously arranged a “Mathematical Analysis” version of the song Chengdu; at a commencement ceremony, a doctoral student mentored by Professor Xie Feng said, “You made me believe that I, too, can do mathematics well.” Over thirty years, this team has written an educational story of perseverance and innovation. In their classrooms, mathematics is no longer a cold collection of symbols—it becomes a medium for enlightening the mind and shaping character. This is the most touching educational poem of the Mathematical Analysis Teaching Team.
【Profile of a Distinguished Teacher】
The Mathematical Analysis Teaching Team is a “dream team” of mathematicians spanning three generations—senior, mid-career, and young scholars—comprising ten faculty members active on the front lines of teaching and research: Zhou Chunqin (course coordinator), Chen Keying, Deng Shijin, Gu Qilong, Li Hongze, Tao Youshan, Xie Feng, Wang Fang, Wang Haitao, and Wang Xiaodong, together with course supervisors Qiu Zhaotai, a National Model of Teacher Ethics, and Wang Weike, a Shanghai Distinguished Teaching Master. Over three decades, with pens as oars and numbers as sails, they have woven the educational philosophy of “solid foundations, strong interdisciplinarity, and innovation-driven learning” into the classroom, authored four sets of core textbooks, and built Mathematical Analysis into a National First-Class Undergraduate Course and a Shanghai Municipal Key Undergraduate Course. For more than ten years, they have remained steadfastly devoted to educating students. Team members include Highly Cited Researchers, recipients of the Ministry of Education’s Excellent Young Teacher award, “Jiahe” Excellent Teacher honors, the Tang Lixin Distinguished Teaching Award, First Prizes of national and Shanghai teaching achievement awards, as well as the Morning Star Outstanding Teacher and Excellence in Teaching awards, among many others.
Contributing Unit: Office of Faculty Affairs; School of Mathematical Sciences; News Center
Translated by: Zara
Proofread by: Denise
