Editor’s note: In response to the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing, Peking University (PKU) recently took effective anti-epidemic measures in compliance with the official zero-COVID strategy. The measures include remote teaching, regular nucleic acid testing, and closed-loop management. To minimize Omicron’s impact on campus, many faculty and staff members have volunteered to stay on campus to better do their jobs, sacrificing time with their families.

#PKU ‘guardians’# is a featured series on stories of selfless PKU staff and teachers who stay on campus to fight against the epidemic. Today, let’s meet Zhang Wei, a professor of the PKU School of Life Science who sleeps in her office to better support students’ research and studies.

Peking University, June 15, 2022: “For someone who is often out to conduct field study, being able to sleep on a couch indoors is already a luxury.” said Professor Zhang Wei from the PKU School of Life Sciences with a smile. When she first moved into campus, the sofa in her office served her bed.  

Prof. Zhang’s schedule is filled to the brim. She must, for example, teach online classes four to five days a week, guide PhD students’ experiments, edit research papers, review Master’s applications, assist in the launch of summer recruitment programme.


Since before the May Day Holiday, Prof. Zhang has been paying close attention to the COVID-19 policy in fear of campus entry restrictions due to the increasing confirmed cases. If she had worked from home, her network connection might be unstable, resulting in a lot of disruptions. Therefore, she decided to sleep on campus as early as on May 1st, the second day of the Holiday. When it comes to the duration of her campus stay, Zhang stated that she “will not return home at least until finals and thesis defenses are over.”

Zhang is not the only person. In fact, a total of 230 PKU faculty members are currently staying on campus. They are racing against time and overworking themselves to ensure that the move to the online teaching mode does not disrupt classes, thesis defenses, experiments or other tasks during the graduation and final season.

The challenges Prof. Zhang is facing are both realistic and new. Unlike the online teaching policy implemented in 2020, the current policy employs a hybrid approach, allowing students who are off campus to study remotely alone while those who are on campus to watch online courses together through one big screen in the classroom. “This is very challenging for teachers because we cannot get feedback from students in the classroom due to the lack of cameras, so we don’t know which part of the lecture needs elaboration.” said Prof Zhang. She admitted that she wasn’t very accustomed to teaching in this hybrid way at first. But she managed to get extra cameras installed in the classroom by coordinating with the relevant departments. As a result, more interactions were available during classes, but her workload increased as well.

“When I’m teaching, I want to be eagle-eyed and get all of the feedback from students, whether they attend the online sessions individually or together in the classroom, so I can make quick adjustments during the classes.” Prof. Zhang explains, “Teaching comes first, so we cannot compromise and must constantly seek improvement.”


However, Zhang Wei noted that there are other challenges to be solved. In 2020, students at least had the company of their families since they took online classes at home, but now, even if they are on campus, they are unable to meet their teachers who work from home. This, compounded with the upcoming graduation and finals, might cause considerable strain on students’ mental health. Prof. Zhang often incorporates light-hearted content into her classes, in hopes of shifting the way students look at problems. For instance, Zhang likes to quote the words of Nietzsche, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, to encourage students to view recent challenges as a learning opportunity.


Aside from regular sessions, Prof. Zhang gave a special online lecture titled “The Beauty of Butterflies” for PKU students, which attracted a total of 20,000 people. She also held lectures on evolutionary biology for high school students, which drew more than a thousand participants.


Zhang appreciates her family for their understanding and support, which allowed her to wholeheartedly focus on her job. On her desk there is a bag of colourful origami animals made by her. “I’ll give this to my children when I go home.” She said.

Writer: Chan Zi Qing
Editor: Ye Yimeng
Source: PKU News (Chinese)