At the beginning of 1998, Yang Fujia started his second term as president of Fudan University. It was not long after that that he came up with the idea of leaving. On the one hand, some things made him feel a deep sense of powerlessness; on the other hand, he longed to return to the academic research he loved. In August 1998, he submitted a written resignation request to the superior organization, which was approved in December. In early 1999, he officially resigned.
Many Fudan elders feel that compared to the previous school leader's school management style, Yang Fujia is more "radical". His "radical" or "cutting-edge" style comes from his broad international vision.
On July 17, 2022, 86-year-old Yang Fujia died of illness in Shanghai.
Cheng Tianquan, the former party secretary of Fudan University who worked with Yang Fujia, told " China News Weekly " that as a president who inherited the past and ushered in the future, the most important trace left by Yang Fujia was to guide Fudan to expand its international vision and build an "open door" university". Some of his ideas may have had great practical significance in the context of the time, but they may have been of great practical significance in the current context.
"If Yang Fujia were the principal today, his blueprint could be drawn more accurately and he could build a house directly." Cheng Tianquan said.
In 2014, Yang Fujia (second from left) led teachers and students from Fudan University to the United States to visit Li Zhengdao (second from right). When Yang Fujia was the president of Fudan University, Li Zhengdao established academic research funding projects for college students in four universities including Fudan. Some of the funded students have grown into famous scholars. Picture/provided by interviewee
"Copenhagen Spirit"
Copenhagen is the "second hometown" in the hearts of Yang Fujia's family.
He once said that if he had not gone to Denmark , he would not have had many opportunities in the future. These two years in his life were crucial to him.
But opportunities only favor those who are prepared.
After four years of college, Yang Fujia was recognized as a top student, secretary of the Youth League branch, and an activist in social activities. At that time, the university changed its teaching to Russian, but out of interest, he often went to the library to read Dickens 's "A Tale of Two Cities" and other original English novels. The English foundation he laid down at Shanghai Gezhi Middle School has not deteriorated, and he is also familiar with European and American history and culture.
In 1958, he stayed at the school after graduation and participated in the preparation of the Department of Atomic Energy (known externally as the "Second Department of Physics"). When the Department of Atomic Energy was formally established in 1960, the school made an exception and promoted a group of young teachers who were outstanding in both politics and business. The 24-year-old teaching assistant Yang Fujia was appointed as the deputy director of the department.
In 1962, Deng Xiaoping boldly proposed the idea of "sending to the West", which was approved by the central government. In 1963, China and Denmark signed a scientific exchange agreement and sent two Chinese physicists to Denmark for further study.
After many rounds of selection, Yang Fujia became a candidate. In February 1963, he and more than 40 other candidates who went to Western countries for further studies gathered at Beijing Foreign Studies University to participate in a half-year English training.
students were divided into two classes based on their admission interview scores. Yang Fujia was placed in the second class, which was less advanced, and became "friends in need" with Chen Jia'er from the Department of Atomic Energy of Peking University. The two decided that from now on they would no longer speak Chinese and speak "Pidgin English" to the end.
In the exam five months later, 4 of the 13 people in the second class passed the exam, including Yang Fujia and Chen Jia'er. Chen Jia'er was sent to Oxford University in England for further study, and Yang Fujia was sent to the Bohr Institute in Denmark.
The Bohr Institute, the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen, was founded by Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr and enjoys an almost pilgrim-like status in the physics community. Bohr loved talents as much as his life, and he went around looking for promising young people to work at the Institute. He was known as the "Father of Scientific Internationalization". He died in 1962, and the institute was directed by his son Auger Bohr.
On October 11, 1963, Yang Fujia and Zhang Li from Tsinghua University arrived in Copenhagen after a long journey.
The day they arrived happened to be a Friday, a day when the institute held a regular academic seminar. Before they had time to register, they were taken directly from the airport to the large staircase classroom where the seminar was held.Auger Bohr and Ben Mortensen were both present, and the discussion was extremely lively. The two men later won the Nobel Prize in Physics together.
Yang Fujia is engaged in experimental physics. He collaborated with a Danish scholar and worked in the institute's tandem accelerator laboratory to test the predictions made by Auger Bohr and Mortensen about a nuclear motion state.
He is here as a postdoctoral researcher. Most of the more than 50 scholars in the institute from all over the world are genuine PhDs. Only he is actually a bachelor's degree graduate and comes from China, which is relatively backward in science and technology, so he is under a lot of mental pressure. He worked very hard, and it was common for him to stay up all night doing experiments.
Late one night half a year later, after working continuously for more than 40 hours, he finally waited for the expected signal and the experiment was successful. The institute was very satisfied with his work and invited him to extend his study period for one year.
In the Bohr Institute, everyone believes in the famous saying of Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize winner and great physicist who worked here: "Science is rooted in discussion." There is a big blackboard in the institute, and people are always gathered in front of it. .
In 1964, Heisenberg came to the institute to receive the "Bohr Prize", and Yang Fujia listened to his speech. He said that a walking discussion with Niels Bohr was the most important walk of his life. That time, Heisenberg, a 21-year-old sophomore, went to listen to Bohr's speech, which had just won the Nobel Prize, and asked some sharp questions. Bohr knew he had hit the mark as soon as he heard this. After the meeting, he invited Heisenberg to take a walk with him, asked the young man for advice, and invited him to come and work at the institute.
In Yang Fujia's opinion, the restaurant is the best place to study in the institute. The dishes in the restaurant were very simple. He even suspected that the Danes couldn't even cook eggs. The shelf below was actually very beautiful. Everyone put hard-boiled eggs on it and cracked the shells with spoons to eat. "That's all." Egg". But that was the place that attracted him the most. He rarely goes to the library. He feels that the library is full of old knowledge. To learn the latest knowledge, it is better to ask people at the table for advice.
There are frequent social activities in the institute, and the Yang Fuji family is invited to attend at least two or three nights a week and as many as four or five nights a week. Among the more than 50 foreign scholars at the institute, there are more than 30 Americans. He was worried at first, but the cultural counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Denmark encouraged him to learn more about Danish society and culture and make more friends.
These discussions and activities have made great progress in his English. In the early 1970s, after Nixon visited China, people from all walks of life from the West came to visit one after another. Most of the speeches given by these Western scientists in Fudan and even Shanghai were interpreted by Yang Fujia nearly a hundred times.
Yang Fujia said that the two years at the Bohr Institute allowed him to undergo the baptism of the purest scientific spirit, and it was an experience that allowed him to "break out of a cocoon and become a butterfly." He personally felt what the "Copenhagen spirit" is, which is actually an "atmosphere", a strong academic atmosphere of equal and free discussion and close cooperation.
In 1972, Og Bohr wrote in a letter of recommendation for Yang Fujia: "He has independent opinions, is straightforward, humorous, and easy to get along with. He is a very capable physicist. I strongly Recommend him. "
In 1979, at the invitation of Og Bohr, Yang Fujia visited the Bohr Institute for the second time. Feng Daxuan, a Chinese-American scholar who later served as the vice president of the University of Texas at Dallas, was also visiting here at that time, and thus got acquainted with the Yang Fujia family.
He found that on the one hand, Yang Fujia had a strong interest in the research he was engaged in, and on the other hand, he also had a broad interest in topics other than science, such as education, economy, and China's future. He said that before the term "research university" became popular, Yang Fujia already understood the responsibilities of a "research university". "In short, I clearly see that the Yang Fujia family is destined to have a career with huge influence beyond science."
took office in Fudan
After the reform and opening up, the Yang Fujia family ushered in the career beyond science predicted by Feng Daxuan step by step. And a huge impact on the cause.
In 1981, he became the first batch of doctoral supervisors at Fudan University, and later served as the dean of the graduate school.Since 1987, he has concurrently served as the director of the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research (now known as the Institute of Applied Physics) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 14 consecutive years. This is the second largest institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with 1,200 scientific researchers. In 1991, he was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (later called an academician), and was also elected as an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences . In May of this year, he served as the vice president of Fudan University and initiated the establishment of the Fudan University Development Research Institute, the first think tank in universities. Domestic and foreign media have reported on "this new thing in the reform and opening up."
1992 is the year of transition at Fudan University. On the eve of the election, the Ministry of Education and the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee came to Fudan University to conduct public opinion polls, and Yang Fujia was one of the important candidates.
Yang Fujia doesn't talk much, but when he does speak he seems very ambitious. He often said, "As a school leader, you must leave your own mark." Some people voted for him in the polls based on this sentence.
In February 1993, he was appointed president of Fudan University by the State Council. In his inaugural speech, he proposed the goal of “pursuing excellence and striving to be first-class” and believed that the current focus of the school’s work should be on improving the level of the “national team” so that it could one day rank among the world’s top universities.
Yang Fujia’s goal of “creating a first-class” surprised everyone, because there is still a comprehensive gap between the school’s strength and the world’s first-class universities. Cheng Tianquan, then deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Fudan University (he became secretary of the Party Committee after 1995) believed that the goal of "creating a first-class" was very inspiring and said what everyone wanted to say but did not say, but because the conditions were not met, no one except Yang Fuji's family was there at that time. Dare to shout this slogan.
In order to persuade everyone to accept this goal, Yang Fujia said that both individuals and units must understand their current historical position in order to accurately choose their goals. In his view, Fudan University’s goal of becoming a first-class university is certain, both in terms of the country’s past support for the school and its future expectations for the school.
In the summer of 1993, after discussion at an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee, the goal of building Fudan University into a world-class university was formally proposed and written into the "Fudan University Reform and Development Outline (1993-2005)". With this goal in mind, Yang Fujia began to implement a series of drastic reforms.
Shi Yuequn, the then vice president of Fudan University, told China News Weekly that Yang Fujia was an independent and responsible president who was good at fighting for the right to speak and could fully exercise his authority. Once he made a decision, he would be firm despite all opinions. This is also the main reason why some of his reform measures can be implemented.
Among these reform measures, the most important one is to advocate and encourage "famous professors to take basic courses." Incentive measures include a special monthly allowance of 300 yuan per person for doctoral supervisors taking basic courses.
It is a routine practice in foreign universities for professors to teach basic courses to undergraduates. This was also the case in China before the Cultural Revolution, but this practice was broken after the Cultural Revolution. In the early 1990s, Fudan professors were basically engaged in scientific research, and teachers with associate professors and below taught undergraduate courses. This resulted in a common phenomenon in which newly graduated graduate students took basic courses, while famous professors, especially doctoral supervisors, only gave lectures to graduate students.
Yang Fujia believes that first-class professors should be on the podium. Otherwise, students will feel cheated if they hear that Fudan University has so many famous teachers who are both academicians and doctoral supervisors before entering the school. .
When he was admitted to the Department of Physics of Fudan University in 1954, the Fudan campus was small, but the teachers made him realize that "the so-called university does not mean a building, but a master." When he first became a professor in 1980, the old principal Su Buqing reminded him: "You have to go to class, otherwise how can you live up to your reputation?" He just stepped onto the podium and received rave reviews from students.
When he first became the principal, there were 108 doctoral supervisors in the school, and only 2 were taking basic courses. By the second semester, 16 doctoral supervisors were on the front line of basic teaching. A few years later, the number increased to more than 60, forming the above basic courses. Honorable atmosphere.
In the final exam of the first semester after he took office, the school discovered that 27 students had cheated.He feels that if cheating is common, what kind of university can be considered a first-class university? In addition to rectifying the academic style and improving the school's academic reputation, he also has another consideration, that is, many cheaters are top students and cheat in order to keep first place, which goes against the trend of modern science.
Nobel Prize winner Lederman once said: "Collective work is crucial; scientific enjoyment is ornamental, and you must learn how to get pleasure from other people's achievements." Yang Fujia gave an example He said that the discovery of the "top quark" involved two groups of people and more than 800 scientists. It is still unknown who the Nobel Prize will be awarded to. In the past, and Einstein could publish three large articles a year, but now 800 people can only co-write one article. Science is increasingly becoming a collective creation, and teamwork must be highly emphasized.
After discussion, Fudan issued a school order: If students cheat in the morning, they will be expelled from school in the afternoon, and if they are found, they will be expelled.
Expulsion for cheating was a higher education regulation stipulated by the Ministry of Education before the Cultural Revolution. However, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, due to the influence of social trends, schools became increasingly afraid to continue to implement it because it might hinder the future of students. , some parents of students even went to the school office to kneel down. But the Yang Fujia family had the courage to implement it.
Yang Fujia later admitted that he was a little scared after making this decision, because if 50 people really cheated and were expelled, he would not be able to continue to be the principal. After the
school order was promulgated, 7 people were still found cheating in the first exam. After that, the number of cheaters dropped rapidly, to an average of 2 people per semester. Fudan has a "tracking care plan" for students who have been dropped out of school. If they perform well within two years, they can apply for reinstatement.
Yang Fujia attaches great importance to giving young people opportunities. Because he himself is the beneficiary of "giving opportunities to young people", and these opportunities are "given in a timely manner." In addition, he saw from the Nobel Prize winners he had personal contact with that climbing to the peak of science is largely a career for young people.
The year he took up his new post in 1993 was the period when the loss of young teachers was most serious due to the "sea fever" and "abroad fever". Some of the key young teachers in some departments that were in line with international standards were almost empty.
With the support of Yang Fujia, starting in 1993, Fudan University has set up a special "battle ring" link in the evaluation of senior professional titles. Teachers under 40 years old and over 30 years old are not subject to promotion quota restrictions and can openly compete for professor and associate professor positions.
Hu Wei, who was a young teacher at Fudan University at the time, told China News Weekly that the promotion channels for professional titles were very crowded at that time. His teacher Wang Bangzuo was only promoted to associate professor when he was 50 years old. This was not uncommon. After Yang Fujia established the "Dachai" channel, the promotion of young teachers is no longer subject to seniority restrictions. It is based solely on academic level. They can directly submit review materials and be voted by the academic committee. Each subject can usually only pass one at a time. The competition between the two is very fierce. At the age of 31, Hu Wei participated in the "fighting arena" and was evaluated as an associate professor. At the age of 34, he was evaluated as a full professor. At the age of 35, he was already serving as a doctoral supervisor.
39 Chen Sihe, who criticized Professor Shang Zheng at the beginning of the year, called himself a "beneficiary". He was appointed as a doctoral supervisor in the same year as a professor and began to supervise doctoral students in the second year. He told "China News Weekly" that he and some other young teachers in the Chinese Department were able to stabilize at Fudan. The most important group of backbone professors in the Chinese Department now all became the backbone during Yang Fujia's tenure. For Fudan, It is a generation that connects the past and the next.
In the following years, more than a hundred young teachers obtained senior professional titles through "fighting." In 1992, there were only 54 full-time teachers under the age of 45 who were full-time and associate professors. By 1996, there were 207, and in 1997, there were 262.
Yang Fujia is also an active advocate of the implementation of "general education" in Fudan. He saw that in the past, China's graduate education was underdeveloped, so undergraduate education was regarded as cultivating high-level professionals, resulting in increasingly specialized undergraduate majors. The people trained in this way could become professionals in certain fields after graduation, but it was difficult for them to become professionals. Great creativity. It’s time to reform undergraduate education.
Sun Laixiang, then director of the Academic Affairs Office and later vice president of Fudan University, recalled to China News Weekly that during the winter vacation of 1994, Fudan University convened more than a hundred professors and experts for three days to conduct an unprecedented scale A big discussion on educational ideas. Yang Fujia first gave a morning mobilization report, then invited teacher representatives from each department to speak, and finally divided into groups for discussion. Nearly 40 professors wrote articles in the school magazine, expressing their opinions.
Sun Laixiang said that the concept of "generalist" education can easily be understood as "one panacea", but in the end everyone reached a consensus that "generalist education" should be implemented for undergraduates to enable students to develop deep basic knowledge and strong thinking ability . This was the basis for Fudan’s later implementation of the credit system reform.
Sun Laixiang believes that among all previous presidents, Yang Fujia is unique in attaching importance to undergraduate teaching. He is the principal who proposes the most new ideas and implements the most concrete measures in this regard. His consistent thought is to integrate with international standards and learn from each other's strengths to offset weaknesses. .
In Sun Laixiang's view, the Yang Fujia family has a direct style of conduct and is not considerate of people's feelings when criticizing, which can sometimes be overwhelming and has offended many people. He once publicly criticized Sun Laixiang at a school-wide meeting, which Sun Laixiang found difficult to accept. However, later he was very satisfied with Sun Laixiang's work, and publicly praised Sun Laixiang several times at school-wide meetings, and also strongly recommended Sun Laixiang as deputy director. headmaster.
Sun Laixiang feels that Yang Fujia is an ambitious president. He wants to raise Fudan University to a higher level during his tenure. This idea is adapted to the situation. He has indeed made Fudan University's ranking significantly improved during his tenure. promotion, expanding its influence at home and abroad. Some people once jokingly called his proposed "creating first-class" as "singing first-class", but as the work progressed, they gradually accepted this goal.
Hu Wei, who grew up in the arena, was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and was the founding dean of the School of International and Public Affairs of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He said that Yang Fujia is a strong and pioneering scholar-type principal. He retains the original intention and character of a scholar and truly runs the school in accordance with the laws of education and academic rules. As a comprehensive university focusing on liberal arts, the general education implemented by Fudan is very consistent with the characteristics of liberal arts. As reflected in Fudan's folk school motto "Free and Useless Soul": it may not seem practical, but in fact it can be of great use. .
"It's good to fail or succeed"
After resigning as the president of Fudan University, Yang Fuji, who is over sixty years old, has never been idle. He often wears a pair of large-framed sunshade glasses and a smart suit and travels around the world.
A piece of news in December 2000 made him a news figure again after he had faded out of the public eye: the University of Nottingham in the UK announced that it would hire him as the school's next Chancellor.
The University of Nottingham is an old and prestigious university ranked seventh in the UK. Until he resigned after serving as Chancellor for 12 years, Yang Fujia found it difficult to accurately translate the word because there were no similar positions in Chinese universities.
He once called a friend at the University of Hong Kong and was told that this word is translated as "supervisor" in Hong Kong; he also asked his old friend and translator Lu Gusun, and Lu Gusun said with certainty that there is only one translation for this word. Law is the "principal", and the role of principals in different countries is different.
When Yang Fujia first received a letter from the Nottingham University Council to elect him as Chancellor, he didn't take it seriously. Soon he received a second letter informing him of the election results and that he ranked first. He then asked the other party two questions. The first was whether he had any responsibility for fundraising, because he heard the president of Harvard University said that his first responsibility was to find money around the world. The other party replied, no. He asked again, do you want to take charge of daily work? The other party replied, no. Only then did he accept it. After being elected by the school board of directors, he officially became the new Chancellor.
He found that the core of the British university management system is to control power by power, relying on the cooperation of the board of directors, school committee, and academic committee. The Chancellor is an advisor and is also the chairman of the school board. He is an indispensable part of this system of checks and balances.
As for why a Chinese was invited to serve as Chancellor, which was originally held by the royal family and people with titles? He believes that this is first of all required by the internationalization strategy of the University of Nottingham, and he was chosen because of the opportunities that will be brought about by the great development of education in China. In addition, it is also because he has been active on the international academic exchange stage for many years. He has collaborated with American scholars to publish an English academic monograph "Modern Atomic and Nuclear Physics". As the executive director of the International Association of University Presidents, he often participates in international conferences and has made many friends. , including Sir Colin Campbell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham.
Chen Hong graduated from Fudan University in 1994 and stayed at the school, working in the school office, and later served as the secretary of the Yang Fujia family. More than 20 years of working together made him deeply influenced by Yang Fujia’s philosophy of “being a person first, academics second”. In his opinion, the Yang Fujia family are open-minded people, and no matter what opinions they have, they should express them face to face, as long as they can improve the problem and promote the progress of the work.
After 2001, Yang Fujia served as Chancellor of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He went to the United Kingdom twice a year, staying for more than ten days each time, attended the two-semester graduation ceremony of the University of Nottingham, and personally awarded each student a diploma. He also needs to chair board meetings and represent the school at important ceremonies. Whenever there is a graduation ceremony, the five-star red flag can be seen rising everywhere on campus.
Chen Hong told China News Weekly that Yang Fujia is a reform-oriented scholar with a broad vision and ideas. He is accustomed to examining whether something is suitable for the local area with his understanding of the West. He likes to quote Fei Xiaotong "Everyone appreciates his own beauty, the beauty of others is the same, the beauty is shared, and the world is unified." He appreciates the liberal arts college model, which pays special attention to the individual development of students.
In March 2003, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Regulations on Sino-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools. Yang Fujia took the lead in testing the waters and founded the University of Nottingham Ningbo Ningbo in his hometown. The school board has 15 school directors, including 7 British school directors and 8 Chinese school directors. Yang Fujia represents both the Chinese and British sides and serves as the principal concurrently.
In the second year, the University of Nottingham Ningbo Ningbo was approved and began enrolling students. This was a testing ground into which Yang Fujia was able to pour some of his ideas about liberal arts education .
In his opinion, liberal arts education has five elements. The first is erudition, which means the integration of liberal arts and science; the second is elegance, which means being a person first and studying second; the third is student-centered; the fourth is encouraging questioning; and the fifth is rich student associations and social practices.
He admired the words of Francis Oakley, president of Williams College, the top liberal arts college in the United States, at the inauguration ceremony: "Extracurricular activities are as good as regular courses; games are as good as work; companionship is as good as solitude; strangers are as good as solitude. Or familiarity, discomfort or comfort, protest or celebration, regulations or self-choice, failure or success, it’s all good "
(This article refers to "The Biography of Yang Fujia" written by Huo Sitong)
Published in the 1055th issue of "China News Weekly" magazine on August 8, 2022
Magazine title: "International Model" Principal Yang Fujia
Reporter: Song Cundan
