The long history of the university can be traced back to 1909, when the Nanyang Institute in Shanghai established a Shipping Management Section. DMU was founded in 1953 through the merger of three merchant marine institutions: Shanghai Nautical College, the Northeast Navigation College and Fujian Navigation School. At the time its name was Dalian Marine College, and it was the only maritime college in China. In 1960, DMU was designated a national key institution of higher education. Later in 1983, the Asia-Pacific Region Maritime Training Center was established at DMU by the United Nations Development Program and the IMO, and in 1985, a branch of the World Maritime University was established. In 1994 the university's name was changed to the present one. In 1998 it was the first maritime university in China to receive the ISO 9001 Certificate. In 2004, the university successfully passed the quality assessment of undergraduate teaching by the Ministry of Education. Former Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist PartyJiang Zemin once wrote a few words of encouragement for DMU: “Be steadfast, rigorous, industrious, and pioneering in order to build the University into one of the preeminent maritime universities in the world”. Through continual development, DMU has been at the forefront of similar universities both in broadening the scope and in enhancing the level of its programs. On June 6, 2009, DMU celebrated its centennial, with vice chairman of standing committee of 11th National People's CongressChen Zhili as the main guest.
Facilities
DMU is located in southwestern Dalian. The university covers an area of 1.13 million square meters with about half a million square meters occupied by buildings. DMU has a training dock and over 40 laboratories for teaching, training and research. DMU also owns and operates an ocean-going training vessel of over 10,000 deadweight tonnage.
Academics
The university is designated as one of the "Project 211" institutions. Only about six percent of the universities across China were selected in this project. The university consists of 14 colleges and Departments:
Currently DMU has 42 undergraduate programs, 2 first-class doctoral programs, 12 second-class doctoral programs, 7 first-class master's degree programs and 59 second-class master's degree programs. Transport Engineering first-class discipline has a post-doctoral R&D base. The university is authorized to confer MBA, MPA, J.M., and Master of Engineering, an on-the-job master's degree. The current student population has risen to approximately 17,000. Additionally, DMU enrolls overseas students for bachelor's and master's degrees and PhDs. More than 4,000 overseas students and advanced professionals from over 30 countries and regions have been educated and trained at DMU. DMU has a highly qualified faculty which comprises 192 professors, more than 100 doctoral supervisors, 5 first-class discipline leader, 42 second-class discipline leaders, 96 academic leaders and a large number of excellent young faculty staff members. DMU has an academic agreement with 4 academicians from the National Academy of Engineering, 39 chair professors, and 148 visiting professors. With the practical academic focus at DMU, these famous specialists and scholars from across the world can bring the latest concepts and the most advanced information in research and theory to DMU faculty staff and students.
