The College of Environmental & Resource Sciences is one of the key colleges constructed and developed by Shanxi University. The School has one first-level discipline-based environmental science post-doctorate program, one second-level discipline-based doctorate program of environment biological medicine science, one first-level discipline-based master's degree program of environmental science and engineering, and one master’s degree program of physical geography. Also, it has four undergraduate majors, including Environmental Science, which is a provincial level program, Environmental Engineering, which is a key discipline with provincial funding, Physical Geography, Resource and Environment, and Ecological Engineering of the Environment. The Resource and Environment Experiment Center is a provincial demo lab.

The faculty members are well deployed in terms of academic degrees. With much focus on undergraduate education, the college has a tradition of rigorous teaching and studying morale, and innovative academic research. Now, 40 teachers out of 58 staff members include 11 professors, and 10 associated professors. Also, the faculty members have 28 doctorate degree holders, 3 doctorate degree candidates, 7 doctoral supervisors and 23 postgraduate supervisors. The faculty members with a master’s degree or above are weighted at 93.2% in total.

The School always keeps balance between teaching work and academic research, and takes efforts to lay a solid foundation for Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering and Geography in terms of academic research innovation and harmonious social relationships among the faculty members.

In the past five years, the college has established two outstanding undergraduate program teams, one provincial demo lab, and four internship bases. Also, there is one awarded young leading teacher of Shanxi province, one of Shanxi’s famous provincial teachers, one awarded by the Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation, one awarded by the 3rd Session of the Top 10 Distinguished Youth of Shanxi Universities and Colleges, and one with an Outstanding Teaching Award by the Education Department of Shangxi.

From the 11th Five Year Plan period (2006-2010) to the early 12th Five-year Plan period (2011-2015), the college has been granted with 12 programs from the National Natural Science Foundation, including one funded by the National Distinguished Young Scientists Foundation，one by the Oversea Top Talent Recruitment Plan, one by the New Century Distinguished Talent Supporting Plan, seven by the General Programs of the National Natural Science Foundation, and two by the National Natural Science Funds. Meanwhile, the college has been granted with 17 provincial programs, including five programs supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province, three Key Science and Technology Projects of Shanxi Province, one Postgraduate Innovation Project and 8 others. The college has 422 academic research projects, 95% of which are focused on environmental impact and project evaluation.

Regarding academic publication, the faculty members have published over 740 essays in academic journals, with 41 essays listed in SCI, in line with 28 academic books. They carried out over 119 national and provincial academic research projects, over 23 national projects and the National Natural Science Foundation. Among these projects, there were 16 reviewed and accepted, and they were also awarded 27 national and provincial awards. The overall research funding reached more than 10 million yuan. All these help to improve the teaching quality and academic research.

The college has been recruiting a lot of faculty with doctorate degrees, in seeing the rising proportions of young faculty members with a higher competence of foreign language. Also, it has sent numerous members to study oversea, or to take an academic visit in oversea universities. During the 11th Five-year Plan period, and even in the earlier 12th Five-year Plan period, the School attended over 40 provincial and national academic conferences, and also invited 28 foreign experts to host lectures or make speeches. Also, the School hosted six academic speeches by foreign academic scholars from Japan, New Zealand and the U.S. In the past seven years, the school has sent 15 fellows to visit oversea universities, improving their competence in international communication.