Beijing, July 5^th, 2010, China Youth Daily:

University is an academic community

Journalist:Nowadays, university is increasingly considered as a common social organization or even as an administrative unit. As the President of SYSU, what is your idea of an ideal university?

Huang Daren: We often emphasize internally that university should be an academic community, which means university should focus on academic, with scientific spirit as core cohesion, while adhering to absolute spiritual pursuit. Meanwhile, university must make a difference. In addition to cultivating excellent talents, it should also look into the future and serve the society.

Moreover, another important concept we have is that professors make university. Professors embody and pass down the spirit and culture of university. They become a measure of the educational quality and level of university, and they are a community which has a fundamental influence on students' personal morality and academic morality. Without professors, university is no longer an academic community. And absolutely, professors are not merely the employees of university.

It is a long way to degrade the administrative model for universities

Journalist: At present, many university professors have high enthusiasms for administrative service. However, we have been told that,at SYSU, no professor would like to take the post of a director, why?

Huang Daren: That’s true. We often meet the embarrassing situation that no professor at SYSU would apply for the posts whenever we recruit leaders for administrative departments in public. Generally speaking, the person in charge of functional department possesses the right of resource allocation to some degree. Some professors would like to take an official post probably because they can get more resources as administration personnel. However, if taking office means to service for the people rather than gaining more resources, there will be less driving force for professors to apply for the administrative posts. With joint effort, SYSU has built a good atmosphere, avoiding the administrative posts becoming a means to obtain resources.
There is an example. Our vice president, an outstanding scholar, is in charge of SYSU’s finance, including all the funds for academic research, team construction and platform construction, etc. But he and his team never embezzled.

Journalist: The university’s degradation of administrative model is a topic of concern to the whole society, and you also said that it is an irresistible trend, so how do you think to realize the degradation of administrative model?

Huang Daren: It is quite a long way to degrade the administrative model for universities. Promoted synchronously with the system reform of public institutions and other industries, it must gradually formulate a management system and supporting polices which are in line with the characteristics of higher education institutes. At present, what SYSU can do is to take care of our own jobs at first. We expect to realize the transformation from management to service at SYSU; that is to say, the administrative departments should provide satisfactory service for teaching and researching. The administrative personnel should think more about what we can do for the professors, the teaching and researching work, how to enhance working efficiency and how to create a pleasant atmosphere for the professors rather a bad one in which they would feel being always restricted.

SYSU students should have a specific spiritual inheritance

Journalist: you put forward another important concept at SYSU, which is “Be kind to students”. May I ask how can we realize this concept?

Huang Daren: Every university should have its own concept, and move forward towards it. In my opinion, the concept of “Be kind to students” is demonstrated in the goal level, which is to make our graduates know rites, be honest, diligent, cheerful, dare to excel, be responsible, and have professional preparation. This goal focuses on students’ future development and is responsible for their whole life. It’s a fine tradition of SYSU and a pursuit of its academic community to emphasize that knowledge and action should go hand in hand, students should learn to meet the practical needs, university should have a close relationship with society and country, pay attention to livelihood and cultivate students with a sense of social responsibility and historical mission.

Journalist: Nearly all universities focus on cultivating innovative talent now. What does SYSU do in this aspect?

Huang Daren: Professor makes a university. Teachers should provide the best teaching for students. In terms of practical teaching, according to professional disciplines and curriculum reform, SYSU has developed three university-level public teaching experimental centers, ten institute-level professional teaching experimental centers, five national level and provincial level experimental demonstration centers in the past few years. SYSU also allows and encourages undergraduates to go to high-tech research platform, such as national key laboratories and research centers, to take part in scientific research projects, so that undergraduates can have a comprehensive training. Over the past ten years, SYSU has built up more than two hundred off-campus practice bases in the means of being built by SYSU itself, co-built between universities, co-built between SYSU and enterprises. In the coming summer vacation, more than half of the schools will organize students to have field trips in countryside and communities, and have internships or practice in factories and enterprises.

In terms of international schools, SYSU has carried out successively several undergraduate-degree joint education programmes with oversea universities in Hongkong regions, America, Australia and Europe over the past few years. These co-education projects are mainly in the form of "2＋2", which means after finishing the first two years of education at SYSU and having passed relevant assessment, undergraduate can go to the cooperative university to finish the last two years of study. The aim of co-education is to raise our international level and quality of undergraduate teaching, and provide undergraduates with more opportunity to broaden their international perspective and get international experience.

In addition, SYSU has carried out undergraduate programmes of general education steadily since 2009, aiming to reach the general education goals of developing mind, enhancing thinking ability, social responsibility and ideal personality.

 I am often moved by my students

Journalist: It’s time for graduation, and we heard that you will keep shaking hands and taking photos with every graduate and presenting certificates for them. Is that true?

Huang Daren:  Yes. I can’t give any chance for my students to say that they never met the president although they have spent several years at SYSU. This year, I will shake hands and take photos with almost sixteen thousand graduates. Although it is al pay out in body, actually my hand will swell up and need a massage, but it is definitely an enjoyment in mind. I feel happy when I hear the students say "I love SYSU” in my ears.

Journalist: The present society holds high expectations on university graduates’ employability. But there is cognitive difference on employability between the employers and the university students. For example, the employers concern more about the students’ sense of responsibility and professional dedication, but the students care more about their computer skills and foreign language proficiency, what do you think of that?

Huang Daren: The enterprises require university students to master the jobs as soon as they graduated, that’s impossible. It is vocational-technical schools rather than universities that are responsible for cultivating immediate practical skills
The other day, a student came to me and asked if he could take a photo with me. After taking the photo, he gave me a letter in which he told me that he had been employed by Nanfang Newspaper Group. But he decided to give up the advantageous living conditions in Guangzhou and chose to go back to his hometown Meizhou, a less developed place, and become a rural official there. There are still many examples like this at SYSU. Besides, the education aid team of SYSU students, generation after generation, has stayed in a remote region of Yunnan, for almost ten years. The university students may have some problems the society has accused of, but in my opinion, they have their lovely and responsible side. I am often moved by my students.