The "National Excellent Teacher Training Initiative"(NETTI) is a beneficial component of the teacher education system with Chinese characteristics. Many pilot universities do not have normal colleges or departments, so it is particularly important and necessary for such universities to promote the National Excellence Program at a high level. This paper analyzes the requirements for teachers in the new era, proposes to take cultivating "educationist" as the goal and be guided by the spirit of "educationist and scientist" , and puts forward the main measures for non-normal pilot universities to advance the construction of the NETTI from the aspects of construction philosophy, construction mechanism, training mode and training system.