The College of Animal Science and Technology can be traced back to the Henan Specialized Public Agricultural School. In 1913, the school started to enroll preparatory students majored in silkworm science. In 1927, the Department of Animal Husbandry was established in the Agricultural Division, National Fifth Zhongshan University, and it was changed to Department of Animal Husbandry, College of Agriculture, Henan University in 1930, Department of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Henan University in 1952, and College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine in 1993. In June 2020, in order to further expand school-running framework and highlight the advantages and characteristics of the related disciplines, the College of Animal Science and Technology was established on the basis of the Doctoral program on the first-level discipline of animal husbandry.
There are 5 teaching units in the college. They are department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Department of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Production and Intelligent Animal Husbandry, Department of Aquaculture, Economic Animal raising and breeding, and the Animal Science Experimental Teaching Center. There are 3 campus based internal practical and teaching units located on Zhengzhou, Yuyang and Xuchang cities, and more than 20 contract based animal production and breeding farms including Nanyang Muyuan, Yunan Zhengda, Gushi Sangao and Huadu Yukou and so on. There are 2 provincial first-level key disciplines and 4 provincial secondary-level key disciplines, and 12 national and provincial teaching and research platforms, such as National Center for Teaching Demonstration of Animal Science Experiments, Key Laboratory of Animal Biochemistry and Nutrition of the Ministry of Agriculture, Henan Collaborative Innovation Center of Modern Animal Husbandry, and International Joint Research Laboratory for Poultry Breeding of Henan. The college has chaired over 29 national and provincial major and key research projects which were sported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National "863" Program, the National Science and Technology Support Program, and the National Key Research and development Program, respectively, and has received 18 national and provincial scientific research awards, including the second prize of the State Technological Invention Award and the second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award. The college also possesses 100 national authorized technological invention patents.
The college carries out the strategy for strengthening the college with talents and strives to build a high-level faculties. There are 76 faculty members, including 62 full-time teachers in the college now. Among these full-time teachers, 56 possessed doctoral degree, 1 was awarded Zhongyuan Scholar, 3 were selected as the scientists of national modern agricultural industrial technology system, 2 were awarded distinguished professors of Henan, and 4 were awarded academic and technical leaders of Henan. The college was awarded 1 innovation team from the Ministry of Education, 1 innovation team from the Ministry of Agriculture, 3 innovative science and technology team of Henan, 1 teaching innovation team of Henan. The college has 1 doctoral program on the first-level discipline and 4 doctoral programs on the second-level disciplines of animal husbandry.
The college has 4 undergraduate majors, among which the animal science specialty was ranked as the provincial first-class and awarded famous-brand, the aquaculture specialty is rated as University-level characteristic majors. The direction of animal husbandry industry and engineering in the animal science discipline is the specialty of "new Agriculture disciplines" of Ministry of Education, China. At present, there are around 750 full-time students enrolled on-campus, including 190 Master's and doctoral students. Persisting in the goal of cultivating "high-quality and interdisciplinary talents", the college continues to improve the runing conditions, deepen the reform of education, strengthen the management of education and optimize the educational environment. The experimental platform has been ranked as the national center for teaching Demonstration of animal experiments, and two of the achievements have won the second prize of national teaching achievements. Two courses have been successively awarded the Excellent courses and the excellent resource-sharing courses of Henan Province.
The college insists on the developmental concepts of "running the college through opening up, establishing the college through teaching, strengthening the college through scientific research, prospering the college by industry and flourishing the college with vitality", obedience to the school motto of " perseverance and authenticity, vigorousness and renewal", carries forward the college spirit of "forging ahead in unity, striving for the top, obeying the collective, loving our college", persists in the school-running principle of "learning, model, practice and first". The college will remain true to its original aspiration, keep its mission firmly, and take up the great responsibilities in development of the new college and cultivation of the high-level talents of animal husbandry industry in the new era.
The college pays great attention to the cultivation of innovative and entrepreneurial talents, insists operating on an open and international way, and has established cooperative relationships with the University of Edinburgh in the UK, the University of New England in Australia, and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. The college lays emphasis on creating an unique environment for educating students, insists holding the "Dushi Lecture" for entrepreneurs, industry celebrities and outstanding alumni to introduce the development situation of the industry, and the "RiXin Forum" for domestic and foreign famous experts and scholars to introduce the frontiers and progress of scientific researches in the disciplines. The college also actively organizes and participates in activities such as the "Academic Innovation Competition for Students outside the Classroom". Our Students have won the golden prize and silver prize in the national extra-curricular academic science and technology work competition of "Challenge Cup" and entrepreneurial plan competition, and won many special prizes and first prizes on the competitions of national animal science and technology professional skills and aquarium landscape construction. There are 15 enterprises who have set up scholarships in the college with a total of more than 1.5 million Chinese yuan. The employment rate of graduates maintains at more than 96%. The rate of graduates taking postgraduate examination is over 50%, and more than 62% of them are admitted to 985 and 211 universities or other key research institutes. Our graduates are favored by the social public for their practical style, solid knowledge foundation, comprehensive quality and innovative spirit.