Yuelu Academy locates at Yuelu Mountain Scenic Zone, a National AAAA Scenic Spot in the west bank of Xiangjiang River in Changsha, Hunan Province. In the ninth year of Kaibao Period, Northern Song Dynasty (A.D 976), Tanzhou Taishou (a prefecture chief of Tanzhou in feudal China) Zhudong officially founded Yuelu Academy based on a school run by Buddhists. After Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, it was named as Hunan Higher School in the 29th year of Guangxu Period of Qing Dynasty (A.D.1903). It was successively named as Hunan Higher Normal School and Hunan Professional Industry School. In 1926, it was normally named as Hunan University. Through thousand years, it is still going forward, thus the university is called "one-thousand-year old academy".
Yuelu Academy, as one of the national important historical monuments under special preservation to date, is still engaged in higher education. It is a research base for humanities and social science and studies of Chinese ancient civilization of Hunan University, as well as the Hunan provincial research base for Huxiang culture. It has a scientific research team with a reasonable structure of education background, title and age, as well as prominent research features and achievements. At present, there are 23 full-time teachers. Among them, 18 are professors, 5 are associate professors and 9 are doctoral supervisors. Doctor degree can be granted from 3 majors of History and Philosophy, including Specialized History (Chinese Intellectual and Cultural History), Ancient Chinese History and Chinese Philosophy. There are 9 majors of them qualified to grant master degree. It has the qualification to grant master degree of History (History is a first-tier subject covering 6 second-tier subjects as follows: Specialized History, Ancient History of China, Modern and Contemporary Chinese History, Historical Philology, Historical Philosophy and Historiography, Archaeology and Museology) and master degree of Chinese Philosophy. Museum of Chinese ancient academies is built here. Its Specialized History is a key discipline of Hunan Province. From 2009, Yuelu Academy began to recruit undergraduates majoring in History in the whole country, which perfected its talent development system.
For the current Yuelu Academy, its research over Confucianism of Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, History of Chinese Ancient Academies, History of Huxiang Culture as well as History of Chinese Etiquette is leading its peers both in China and beyond. Yuelu Academy is also striving to build itself into an academically high-level research base for Chinese traditional culture, research base for Chinese ancient academies, and communication center of Chinese and foreign culture, which will be with high academic position at home and abroad.
