For the Next Team薪火相传

Before we begin

This is a handover note for the Academic Affairs team in the 31st Student Union of PKU’s School of Mathematical Sciences. It brings together what I learned in a year of student work: the practical things worth keeping, and the habits I hope the next team will carry on. I want this department to remain a team people trust, one whose work matters to students and faculty and whose members are proud to belong to it.

How I came to the department

In autumn 2024, I worked with both Liaison and Academic Affairs. Liaison had a capable leader, more work to do, and a stronger sense of being a team. Academic Affairs was quieter, but its work interested me more. Taking my studies into account, I stayed only with Academic Affairs from spring 2025 and decided to continue as its head.

The team we inherited

Wu Yunze, from the class entering in 2022, and Guo Huankun, from the class entering in 2023, led the department before us. In their time it was small, not particularly close-knit, and limited in what it could get done. During the spring of his first year, Guo sometimes had to do almost everything himself.

Successive teams gradually rebuilt the department. We now have nearly thirty members. That is where we came from. I hope those who follow us will keep building on it.

1. Where Academic Affairs fits

One name, two teams

Our formal name is the Academic Group of the Academic and Cultural Affairs Department. The Cultural Group sits alongside us. We share a title, but our meetings, recruitment, and daily work are almost entirely separate.

As I understand it, the arrangement dates back to a limit on the number of departments the union could establish. Academic and Cultural Affairs were grouped together on paper and continued working separately. Why those two? Another inheritance from the past.

Meanwhile, internal and external liaison have separate names but meet together. One possibility would be to combine them and give Academic and Cultural Affairs their own titles. In practice, what matters for us is simply knowing the difference between the official name and how the work is organized.

A fairly independent department

We do relatively little work with other departments. Publicity helps us design the cover of the guide to choosing a specialization. For an overview of the other departments’ work, look through previous autumn recruitment posts.

We work directly with the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, or BICMR. The department head handles that relationship without going through the union’s executive committee. Other departments have their own contacts too: Liaison, for example, works with advertisers such as study-abroad agencies. Our connection with BICMR is a privilege and an opportunity worth taking care of.

Two kinds of activity

Some events are ours from start to finish: talks about choosing a specialization, mock midterm exams, and collecting student-written solutions. We arrange the venue, people, and publicity ourselves.

Others are organized with BICMR, including Math Hour, the Pizza Salon, and faculty lunches. For these, we mainly handle publicity, registration, and help at the event.

2. Working with BICMR

The people

BICMR brings together many outstanding mathematicians at PKU, including Liang Xiao, Xinyi Yuan, and Xinyi Li. For the past few teams, our contact has been Wenqiong Li. She is warm, approachable, and very supportive of student activities. Our regular contact at the center helps us invite the professors.

Who does what

We prepare announcements and registration forms and provide help on the day. The center arranges the venue, invites the professors, orders refreshments, and organizes photography.

The time, place, and speakers often arrive at short notice. We then write and publish the announcement. The day before the event, send the attendance list to the center so they can confirm the food order and check-in list.

Events and places to know

The main events are the Academic Pizza Salon, faculty lunches, and Math Hour lectures. Sessions on further study are partly in this category, since they involve both faculty and older students.

Get to know the venues:

• The Pizza Salon uses the basement space in the Jiayibing Building.
• Faculty lunches take place in Quanzhai.
• Math Hour uses the second-floor lecture room in Jiayibing or a venue in Huaixinyuan.
• Our contact’s office is in Huaixinyuan.

Individual events deserve their own notes; I will leave the finer details there.

3. Events we organize ourselves

The work behind them

For specialization talks, reserve a classroom through the executive committee, invite older students, and prepare the guide in advance. For mock midterms, book the room and assemble the exam. Collecting solutions requires continuing maintenance and checking submissions.

The head’s job is to see how these pieces fit together and make sure someone is responsible for each one.

Be dependable first

Student work is harder to score than an exam. What I value most is dependability: participants and helpers should be satisfied, and the executive committee and faculty advisers should not have to worry. If preventable problems keep drawing complaints or calls for an explanation, there is more to learn.

Before trying something clever, get the ordinary work right. A brilliant move should not spoil a sound position. Keep asking yourself:

• If I were a faculty adviser looking for a problem, what would I find?
• Is anything inappropriate or unnecessarily risky?
• Could I make the arrangements more reliable?

Our school has no shortage of inventive people. Plenty can find an idea for a 36-point CMO or CTST problem. Far fewer earn a teacher’s simple verdict: “I can rely on you.”

Think through the whole day

Start by imagining what might happen and what you would do.

For a mock midterm: what if a student arrives late? Will the markers need dinner? Is there enough scrap paper? For a specialization talk: what if a speaker is late? Have you bought water? What if more people arrive than the room can hold?

Thinking ahead means water for speakers, enough paper for students, a sensible estimate of room capacity, and dinner or milk tea for the people marking papers. Consider the guests, the participants, and your own team.

Walk through the event in order before it happens. Look for both risks and needs. This is how you learn to take responsibility for a whole event, rather than only the task immediately in front of you.

4. The details that matter

Announcements

An announcement goes through four stages: confirm the event and publication slot, write the copy, lay it out, and publish it. The union’s WeChat account has a schedule that can fill up. Arrange a slot at the heads’ meeting.

Academic events depend on professors’ and student speakers’ availability. If next week’s date is uncertain, explain the possible publication window to the executive committee early.

Writing

An announcement may reach several thousand people, including readers outside our school. Write for that audience. If it reads like a primary-school composition, people may start wondering whether we all skipped too many writing classes on our way into university.

Check the grammar. Keep a consistent register. Be respectful without becoming stiff. The aim is something you can show outside the university without embarrassment and to students and faculty without awkwardness. AI tools are fine; generic AI prose is not.

Registration forms

The announcement brings people to the form. The form needs to make life easier for both the person signing up and the person organizing the event.

Be explicit: does submitting the form secure a place, or must applicants wait for confirmation? Collect the information you actually need, including name, student number, and contact details.

Choose a contact method that suits the group. Do not try to add four hundred mock-exam candidates on WeChat. Nor would I rely on email to coordinate with an older student who has agreed to speak. Protect personal information when processing and sharing results. Mock-exam grades, for example, need a workable private lookup system.

Layout and review

Layout is the first thing a reader sees. Make the important information easy to find. Bold key details, give important paragraphs space, and choose images carefully. Start with usefulness, then improve the design.

Ask the center or PKU’s official media team about cover images, or use suitable images with attribution. Take the cover seriously. The finished post normally goes to the designated review group, first for the executive committee’s approval and then for the Youth League advisers’ approval.

Start before the deadline is close

For a specialization talk, contact speakers about two weeks ahead. Confirm who can attend, collect their advice, reserve the classroom, assign helpers, and arrange the recruitment post.

Unexpected things happen. Leave room for them. Liaison’s freshman dance, for example, requires booking Zhongguan Xinyuan at least a month ahead, so preparation often begins as soon as the autumn term starts.

When we control the date, as with specialization talks and mock exams, prepare early. When we do not, as with Math Hour and the Pizza Salon, draft what we can, arrange helpers, and think through alternatives before the details arrive.

Write the plan down

A written event plan is one of the most useful tools I have borrowed. I first encountered it in proposals for sponsors, where it set out the event and advertising arrangements. I adapted it for Academic Affairs.

You can think through an event well before its date is settled. Details that are complicated or easy to forget become something other people can read. The plan makes the current event more reliable and gives the next team somewhere to start.

Too much student-union knowledge passes only by word of mouth. Even if nothing is lost, explaining an entire event again can feel like organizing it twice. I hope our written plans will make the next head’s job easier and leave them time to ask what else students need, rather than reconstructing everything we already know.

Money and reimbursement

Typical expenses include printing, student speakers’ honoraria, and meals for helpers. Faculty speakers, whether invited by us or the center, do not receive honoraria. The center arranges refreshments for its events. Older students whom we invite usually receive 200–400 yuan, depending on the work involved: a modest acknowledgment of their time, rather than generous pay.

Agree on expenses in advance with the executive committee member responsible for finance, then follow the reimbursement process. Much of the union’s funding comes from sponsors brought in by Liaison. People sometimes call Liaison the union’s parent. Financially, they have a point.

5. Recruiting the next team

Why it matters

Recruitment is where we show what the department is like. It shapes both this year’s workload and next year’s ability to carry on. We need younger students who want to stay and eventually take responsibility.

Explain the activities, the work, and the team culture honestly. Compete fairly with the other departments. Know what we can offer.

Clear up the name

“Academic Affairs” can sound like a roomful of mathematical prodigies running a specialist seminar. That may put off exactly the students we want: people interested in organizing academic activities who are not looking for another technical discussion group.

Make the distinction clear: we do not do research as a department; we organize academic activities. That includes mock exams and pizza with professors, not simply gathering to solve problems. University friendships take more initiative than school friendships. Our meetings and outings are also chances to talk and exchange useful information.

A good place to study, too

Although we are not a research seminar, people here care about their studies. Around midterms and finals, members often share past papers and discuss solutions.

In the original spirit of thoroughly informal “statistics among friends,” I estimated the average GPA of our 2024-entry core members at above 3.8. Some equally mysterious statistics put the median first-semester GPA of all department heads from that cohort at around 3.6. Take those figures for what they are, not as a serious statistical comparison.

The everyday habits matter more: people help one another study, and younger members get to know capable peers and older students. That is something worth offering.

Who might feel at home here

We are a good fit for students who want both an academic life and a social one. In my experience, that combination also makes it easier to find people who will enjoy the work and grow into leading the team.

Other departments need their artists, designers, organizers, and athletes. We do not have to compete for everyone. Explain our own strengths clearly and let people find a suitable place.

Show the team, not just the tasks

People are more likely to join a group that looks welcoming, close-knit, and easy to get involved in. In recruitment talks and slides, show photographs of work and outings. Build in a thoughtful bit of interaction. Let people see the freedom and liveliness of the team.

The word “academic” can feel heavy. Our events bring undergraduates and professors together in a more relaxed setting. Our team should feel that way too. If organizing an event calls for steadiness, recruitment should show that steadiness can coexist with fresh ideas.

Interviews

Interviews help us work out whether the role suits an applicant. Welcome people where possible, but be willing to advise against joining when the fit is poor.

I would consider their willingness to do the work, relevant experience, maturity in conversation, whether they see themselves as more outgoing or reserved—the E/I distinction in MBTI—and their attitude towards the student union.

This is not a ranking of people. It is a question of fit.

To the next team

I hope the 31st Academic Affairs team will keep building a department whose members look after one another, do good work, and earn the affection of students and faculty.

With warm wishes from your former head,
March 19, 2026