By DUAN HAIWANG

WARM, humorous and passionate about his work, Lai Shaocong is one of the most popular professors at Northwest University. This idealistic scientist of fruitful achievements frequently ventures out to the high mountains with a knapsack on his back.

Lai Shaocong at the 110th anniversary celebration of the founding of Northwest University.

Established in 1939, the Department of Geology of Northwest University, once geared to cultivating the country’s first petroleum geology professionals, was one of the first in China. A teacher at the university since 1996, Lai is now dean of its graduate school. He is also a member of the Seventh Discipline Evaluation Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, and deputy director of the college geology teaching instruction committee of the Ministry of Education.

His prominent contributions to geological science and teaching won Lai the highest honor of China’s geological industry at the Li Siguang Geological Science Awards at the end of 2015. He expressed gratification at being able to take part in geological scientific research and the cultivation of talents for the country.

Constant Innovations

Lai was admitted to East China Geological Institute (now East China Institute of Technology) in 1979, and has since been involved in geology.

“I had an insatiable curiosity about different kinds of rocks and wanted to understand their secrets,” Lai said.

Rocks on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Qinling Mountains are his main research objects. He regards the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as a mysterious territory and a natural breeding ground for new geoscientific theories, as well as a golden key to the Earth’s secrets. The plateau is hence his study base. After overcoming numerous difficulties such as high altitude anoxia, he went deep into depopulated zones to conduct systematic field surveys on rock and regional structural evolution and gained research achievements.

“An ordinary looking stone has abundant contents,” Lai observed.

The Qinling Mountains contain one of the most important orogenic belts in China, and Lai and his scientific research team have been focusing on core aspects of its tectonic evolution. After 20 years of constant exploration, they have made significant headway in the study of orogenic structures of Qinling. They also study fundamental characteristics of China’s orogenic belt as well as the basic problem of continental dynamics – topics of great scientific significance.

In the course of his scientific research, Lai has presided over major Natural Science Foundation of China projects, and published more than 200 papers, 60 of them included in the Science Citation Index and 30 in the Engineering Index, as well as three books and five textbooks.

Pupils Everywhere

In the eyes of his students, Lai is a conscientious and reliable tutor. Each of his classes perfectly combines academic rigor and passion, knowledge and wisdom, and true originality.

Lai’s approach to cultivating talents is to motivate students’ capacity for learning, innovation, and a brand-new geological outlook. “Scientific research is mainly a matter for my own interest, and teaching students is to stimulate their interest in petrology,” Lai said. He believes that students should accomplish a transition from the “ask me to study” to “I am willing to study” to “I know how to study” mindset.

Lai Shaocong leads his students in a field survey.

To promote their research and innovation capabilities, he included in his course reforms to research-teaching methods. Understanding theory and verifying descriptions of rock forms traditionally depended solely on observation. Lai’s class stresses key points while simplifying tedious memorization, and also provides students with typical problems and references through which to write assignments to show they understand the topic. When teaching field practice, he provides fundamental materials and gets students to analyze samples through various methods and make rock identifications and analyses. “They need to comprehensively apply knowledge they have learned. These are effective ways of strengthening their operational ability, integrative competence and thinking,” Lai said.       

Lai’s teaching reforms have significantly closed the gap between China’s traditional system of geology education and that in developed countries. “Both our curriculum and teaching methods are behind, as they overlook methodology and capacity cultivation and focus solely on knowledge infusion, plus the single evaluation mode,” Lai said when explaining why Chinese geology talents do not excel in international competitiveness.

This is the main reason for his proactive participation in education reform and research.

In view of the weakness of the current mineral and rock curriculum system, Lai has optimized core curriculum group knowledge and established a distinct and new course system featuring four levels of theory, frontier science, and exploration. He has also initiated a new informationized type of practical teaching that encompasses basic training, ability enhancement, as well as exploration and innovation. He has moreover established a number of digital information-based teaching platforms, such as crystal 3D visual teaching, a global typical mineral and rock information base, the teaching of virtual polarized microscope use and that of international leading digital experimental microscopes.  

This work has substantially enhanced talent cultivation, making geology a top major at Northwest University and rated as a national excellent science talent training base by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Happiest Moment

Born in 1963 in Anyue County, Sichuan Province, Lai gained his master degree from East China Geological Institute in 1988. Three years later, he gained a PhD in science from China University of Geosciences in Beijing. He began carrying out post-doctoral research at Northwest University in 1994, and stayed there to teach.

Lai has been involved in higher education for more than 30 years, and spared no effort in advancing to the forefront of teaching and scientific research.

The professor has guided and fostered a host of master and doctoral candidates. At Northwest University, he successively worked as departmental head of geology, executive vice-director of State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, and director of the National Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center of Geology.

Lai Shaocong explains to experts the construction specifics of the State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics.

His undergraduate course on magmatic petrology has been selected as a national level excellent course, and a national level quality resource sharing curriculum. Lai has received subsidization from the Ministry of Education as a core teacher and excellent young teacher, and as an advisor he has guided his doctorial students to produce excellent doctorial papers. In 2014, he was enrolled in the first national high-level talents special support plan.  

Lai has made outstanding achievements in talent training and higher education reform.

As famous Chinese geologist Li Siguang said, “The source of geological science is in the outdoors. True scientific problems and theories are only generated in the wild.” 

Passionate about field work, Lai loves going out to explore secrets of the Earth that are recorded on rocks. He regards the outdoors both as his classroom and laboratory, where he can find problems and seek clues to solve them.

He has done field practice teaching and guided undergraduate thesis field practice for 12 successive years, and has led field practice teams in Qinhuangdao for four years. Lai is painstaking about the entire process, from preparations, planning field routes, observations, and recording data, to making final reports. He makes constant improvements to ensure teaching quality.

“One’s highest value is dedication to the country, society, and humankind. Through devotion, I gain spiritual purification and a happy life.”

Lai has over the years complemented his dedication with practical action, offering his youth and wisdom to the geology department and his knowledge and loving heart to all his students. He feels happiest when observing his students’ devotion to China’s geological undertakings.

According to famous geologist Lu Yanhao, China’s geological conditions are richly endowed by nature. Advancing to the world forefront starts from our natural conditions and continuous innovation.  

Having been involved for several decades in China’s geological science development and talent training, Lai’s love for this science grows stronger. No matter in class, conference room or field work, he finds in it endless pleasure.

“I fell in love with geology since first forming a bond with it. I will keep exploring its beauty and make more contributions to fostering geological talents for our country,” Lai said.