Department of Public Physical Education and Art was established in March 2011, which consists of Department Administration Office, Teaching Administration Office, Physical Education Teaching and Research Section, Art Teaching and Research Section, Physical Health and Monitoring Research Section, Training and Competition Research Section, Venues Management Center, and Clubs Management Center. There are currently 39 full-time teachers including 12 with the title of associate professor or professor and 29 external teachers, whose specialties cover basketball, volleyball, football, table tennis, badminton, tennis, squash, shuttlecock, martial arts, aerobics, fencing, sports dancing, Chinese dragon and lion dancing, yoga, hip-hop, bodybuilding, roller skating, Taekwondo, aesthetics, media, dance, and painting. The Department boasts 23 sports clubs and 16 art clubs, offering 76 courses for the whole university.

It has been 15 years since the Department began to change PE curriculum teaching into a club system in 2006, which won the first prize of Anhui Provincial Teaching Achievement Award twice. From 2017, the reform of the art club system has been implemented, and the full coverage of art education in Hefei University was achieved in 2019. It adheres to PE principles as “People-oriented, Health First, For All, Team Learning”, and art education principles as “Enlightening Truth, Publicizing Goodness, Cultivating Students with Beauty, and Educating Students with Culture”. According to the training needs of professionals in each school of the University, and to fully play the unique role of PE and art in line with the University’s guideline, “Locality, Application and Internationalization”, the Department continuously deepens educational and teaching reform for a better teaching and management quality through institutional innovation, which will give the full play to the characteristics of PE and aesthetic education.

These achievements helps Hefei University to be awarded “Top 100 Universities in National Sports Competitions” for many times. Anhui Provincial Department of Education issued a document to promote the teaching reform of sports and art clubs system in Hefei University. More than 450 colleges and universities from all over the country have sent faculty members to learn from our experience and practice of physical education reform. On September 25, 2018, China Education Daily, in its special report “Learning and Implementing the Spirit of the 19th National Congress of CPC: Endeavor to Develop Education”, covered our reform in great details on its front page in an article titled Systematic Reform of College Physical Education: Focus on Deepening PE Club System Reform in Hefei University in the Past 12 Years. The commentator also acclaimed it with the following words, “The reform of PE club system in HFU has provided a brand-new model and solution for PE teaching in Chinese colleges and universities, and has exerted typical demonstration effects on concept innovation, organizational form, evaluation methods, management mode, and sports culture. The success of sports club system reform in HFU also makes us see the hope of PE in Chinese colleges and universities, and lets us firmly believe that we can fully shape college sports with Chinese characteristics.”