Students in a hurry walk on tree-lined roads; green and soft leaves of the lakeside willow trees sprout against the wind. With the arrival of spring, the garden-like Shanghai University is covered in lusher green vegetation. Since the beginning of the construction of the Baoshan Campus, Shanghai University has been attaching great importance to cultivating plants, creating many stunning landscapes and cultural brands. Today, Shanghai University Baoshan Campus boasts a dense growth of green trees and a mix of cultures. Let’s walk into the green campus to enjoy its boundless flora.

The campuses of Shanghai University, including the “one body” of Baoshan Campus and the “two wings” of Yanchang Campus and Jiading Campus, cover an area of 1.8 million square meters. Shanghai University Baoshan Campus is located in Dachang Town, Baoshan District, Shanghai. The campus occupies an area of about 1.34 million square meters, with a green area of about 630,000 square meters, a greening rate of 41.28%, a greening coverage rate of 44.66% and over 260 species of trees.

In recent years, Shanghai University has secured many honors thanks to its greening work. In 2003, Shanghai University Baoshan Campus was awarded as a “Shanghai Garden Unit”. In 2004, Shanghai University was selected as a “National Model Greening Unit”. In 2012, Shanghai University was rewarded as an “Outstanding Contribution Unit of Land Greening”. In 2018 and 2021, Shanghai University Baoshan Campus passed the review of “National Model Greening Unit”. In 2020, Yanchang Campus and Jiading Campus of Shanghai University won the title of “Shanghai Garden Unit” for 2018-2020. In 2022, Shanghai University was granted the title of “Shanghai Green School”. Over the years, Shanghai University has been writing stories about “green”.

Shanghai University Baoshan Campus boasts lush vegetation and many bodies of water.

A campus is the place where teachers and students study, work and live; a beautiful natural environment will make a campus even more lovely. Since the construction of Baoshan Campus began, Shanghai University has been aiming at building a “green, civilized and information-based campus”. It has made concerted efforts to manage greening work, appointed dedicated personnel to take charge of greening work, and required departments at all levels to undertake greening work, thereby achieving satisfying results in the early stage of campus construction.

Over the past years, Shanghai University has completed the greening projects of the second and third phases of the East District and the young teachers’ apartments, as well as the supporting planting projects of the flyover in the New Century Student Village. The university has improved the greenery of 106,000 square meters in the East District and renovated the obsolete green landscapes of nearly 10,000 square meters of the campus every year according to the schedule, constantly raising the quality of the greenery on the campus and bettering the campus’s ecological environment.

Vegetation in the East District

Fallen flowers cover a clear pond and sparse willows are reflected in a pool of green spring water. There used to be “ten parks, ten scenic spots, ten forests and ten roads” on the campus. Today, Shanghai University, preserving its original greenery, has rationally allocated plant resources and enriched the varieties of green landscapes.

The leaders at Shanghai University highly value the improvement of the campus environment. They have set up a greening project to enable the faculty and students to enjoy the bodies of water and greenery on the campus. The project intends to make campus buildings suitable for reading, make greenery and bodies of water accessible, activate green spaces, renovate the Celebrity Square, build a platform around the Panchi Lake, upgrade the green landscapes around the one-stop service center, create distinctive and cultural scenic spots along the rivers, and organically integrate landscapes and cultures. A series of measures such as rarefying shrubs, adjusting plant arrangements and improving supporting facilities were adopted to increase the accessibility of green spaces. So far, Shanghai University Baoshan Campus has planted plants on points, lines and planes, and those plants form many woods on the campus; it has managed to build an ecological campus environment where the greenery is well arranged and key landscapes are situated in prominent positions.

A rendering of the campus after the greening project is completed

Flowers and trees and green brands.

A scenic spot of the 20th Chrysanthemum Culture Festival

Autumn chrysanthemums have amazing colors and the chrysanthemums with dew are picked. The Chrysanthemum Culture Festival is a signature campus culture project of Shanghai University and an excellent campus culture project of Shanghai universities. So far, the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival has been held 20 times, and its form has been constantly innovated. The chrysanthemums on display and the scenic spots built during the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival are all cultivated and conceived by the staff at the Department of Logistics and Security. The scenic spots have distinctive themes and abundant shapes, creating a colorful and gorgeous artistic scroll on the campus. During the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival, teachers and students carried out multiple events to echo the underlying values of the new era and demonstrate the style of Shanghai University. Nowadays, the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival has become a vehicle for carrying forward the spirit of Shanghai University, a platform for educating students through the environment and an opportunity for developing spiritual civilization.

The scenic spot Setting Sail of the 19th Chrysanthemum Culture Festival

In addition to holding the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival, a cultural event well known to the students and faculty at Shanghai University, the university spares no effort to protect its large number of ancient and precious trees. The university has conducted the protection and daily maintenance of its ancient and precious trees according to the schedule, designated dedicated personnel to maintain the trees, set up special accounts for the trees, and carried out inspections on the trees to protect them effectively. This year’s “Centennial Shanghai University and Centennial Trees” Camphor Tree Guarding Plan, led by the External Liaison Office, invites alumni to give donations to plant 100 camphor trees on the campuses of the university to enhance the historical significance of campus vegetation and help the university implement its education concept of devoting a long time to nurture professionals.

Chrysanthemums are blooming during the 18th Chrysanthemum Culture Festival

Teachers and students join hands to build a greener campus.

The plan to build a green campus environment is a long-term plan that will benefit teachers, students, staff and future generations. It requires the joint efforts of teachers, students and staff of the university, and it also relies on the continuous increase of the awareness of cherishing, protecting and cultivating campus greenery.

Every year on Arbor Day, Shanghai University will utilize various publicity methods to promote tree planting. The Campus Environmental Management Center put up signs on trees in teaching areas, orchards and other places to help teachers and students recognize the common trees on the campus, learn about their growth habits, greening and beautification functions, and encourage them to protect trees. The university offers free classes on planting and maintenance, during which greening experts lead students to do greening work such as trimming lawns, loosening the soil for trees, applying fertilizer to trees and cultivating plants. The Department of Logistics and Security invited students to participate in nurturing chrysanthemums and exhibited their achievements at the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival. That truly brings into play the educational function of the environment, enhancing students’ awareness of cherishing and protecting greenery.

Panchi Lake, which covers an area of 29,681 square meters, is situated in the center of Shanghai University Baoshan Campus, and it is one of the core landscapes on the campus. Panchi Lake is a “natural reservoir”, and digging the lake is one of the important measures taken by the university to build Baoshan Campus into a “sponge campus”.

The Department of Logistics and Security closely cooperated with the School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering to advance the research on relevant topics and explore new methods for purifying water and cultivating plants in a lake based on the monitoring and analysis of the water environment of Panchi Lake.

Shanghai University Baoshan Campus serves the society and shares its scenery with the public.

The CPC Committee of the Department of Logistics and Security of Shanghai University Baoshan Campus took the initiative to contact Baoshan District’s Greening and City Appearance Administrative Bureau, Dachang Town’s Greening Office and Dachang Environmental Sanitation Service Co., Ltd. to establish partnerships to jointly carry out greening work. The aforementioned parties help each other, support each other, form deep friendships in conducting greening projects, and contribute to the undertaking of building a good-looking campus and the cause of developing Baoshan District into an ecological district. On Arbor Day every year, the Department of Logistics and Security, Baoshan District’s Greening and City Appearance Administrative Bureau and Dachang Town’s Greening Office will organize tree activities to plant many plants such as Photinia fraseri, peach trees and Distylium buxifolium, enriching the variety of plants on the campus. In 2022, Shanghai Gongqing Forest Park and Shanghai University launched the “Park Plus” function expansion event. The park presented 300 pots of nearly 200 types of famous varieties of chrysanthemums to the university, increasing the diversity of chrysanthemums of Shanghai University.

In Shanghai University Baoshan Campus, you will see birds flying in the sky if you look up at the blue sky; you will discover wonderful scenic spots on the land if you glance at the green land; you will find the fish playing in the water if you bow your head to enjoy the clear waves. In addition, you will smell the flowers and hear the birds singing all year round on the campus.

Over the years, Shanghai University has been upholding the concept of “creating a people-oriented and ecological campus environment with clear bodies of water and luxuriant vegetation in which man and nature live in harmony”; it has been working towards the goal of building Baoshan Campus into a green, civilized and information-based campus. In the future, the university will make greater contributions to the development of harmonious ecological communities.