What does 德法兼修 mean? Another banner welcoming new students to Nankai University in the Law Building (I walk past these daily, so I'm hoping to practice reading them as I walk past each day):



I transcribe this as:


  励志勤学 德法兼修 祝新同学健康成长进步
  Lìzhìqínxué défǎjiānxiū zhù xīntóngxué jiànkāng chéngzhǎng jìnbù


I believe the last part 祝新同学健康成长进步 translates directly: "wish (祝) new students (新同学) health (健康), growth (成长) and progress (进步)".  The first part seems adequately translated using dict.cn; we have: 励志 = "pursue a goal with determination" and 勤学 = "study diligently".

I don't understand the middle part 德法兼修 (défǎjiānxiū).


德法 is listed as "defa", and Google Translate translates it to "Germany and France".
兼修 is listed as "minor in", and Google Translate translates it to "minor".


I got nothing; neither of these is meaningful.

(If it helps, I noticed it was also mentioned in a news article entitled 人文与社会科学学院举办“德法兼修，点赞青春”普法教育实践课暨玄武区法院庭审进校园活动.)
You need to understand every single character firstly,

德：道德（morality)
法：法制/法律（law）
兼：同时涉及/具有多方面（simultaneously/concurrently）
修：学习/培养（study）


So it could be literally translated as study and improve both morality and legal knowledge.