The city of Shenzhen deserves to be congratulated. Appointing Professor Zhu Qingshi as president of the proposed South China University of Science and Technology (SCUSC) is a commendable choice for the boomtown's ambitious effort to build an outstanding institution of higher learning. Professor Zhu's management experience during his tenure as president of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), his no-nonsense style, plus his tenacity as a reformist make him an ideal candidate for the challenging task.
The retired 63-year-old Professor Zhu, a reform-minded educator, has now found an opportunity to experiment with his ideas. What is more, he is starting from scratch - overseeing the idea of a college of a different kind takes shape from the drawing board. Which means, he will not be weighed down by the usual burdens historical to China such as bureaucratic redundancy.
Most important, the municipal authorities in Shenzhen have promised him a free hand in running the school, which other college presidents can only dream of at this point.
The latitude granted to Professor Zhu is limited to the SCUSC as an experimental project. But given Professor Zhu's knowledge about the state of higher education and his persistent calls to reshuffle the regime, his experiments may result in exemplary consequences. Never forget Shenzhen's own function as an experimental site for the country.
Our best guess, of course, is that Professor Zhu's experiment would herald a break from the way colleges are run in this country.
Therefore, since Professor Zhu accepted the appointment, he has the responsibility of meeting the high hopes his appointment has given rise to. Bureaucratization has driven our colleges to a dead end. Professor Zhu has the chance to find a way out.
Our hopes rest on Professor Zhu because we share his stout resistance to bureaucratization, and admire his record as an independent thinker. He has been one of the few to speak out against the dominance of administrative influence in institutions of higher learning.
The fact that the USTC has been the only major college in China that has not enlarged enrollment since 2000 compels both attention and respect. Many others have doubled and trebled in size, but fallen in the quality of academic instruction.
It is heartening that Professor Zhu intends to stress on de-bureaucratization in the running of the new school. He wants the new college to be one run by professors, instead of lay bureaucrats. That may have been an important reason why he was elected from a pool of six by a unanimous vote. Professor Zhu had expressed the hope to become a "pure academic" after retirement from his USTC presidency. Now he has an opportunity to contribute more than what a scholar can aspire to.
The path of the pioneer is never smooth. Yet, for the future of Chinese higher education, Professor Zhu and his new school deserve our support and good wishes.
(China Daily 09/21/2009 page7)
