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Prof. Yao Yang: The Spirit of Peking University

Sep 05-2014   



Everyone at Peking University, even after graduating for many years will have an emotional bond to the school. This special bond, according to Prof. Yao Yang, comes from two points. First is the Peking University spirit of ‘independence’, it is well known that Peking University has an inexorable link with Chinese history; it is a platform for free thinking and independent teaching. Second is Peking University’s diversity, which benefits from Cai Yuanpei’s call for “free thinking and tolerance”. At Peking University, you can challenge authority; professors think of themselves are providing a service rather than leaders and stress the importance of learning from each other.

RT0A0800

Ok, good afternoon everyone. As today, I like to welcome you all to join NSD, you are going to become one of members of the big, big ever growing family.

I was asked to speak or introduce you guys to the spirit of this university, and also the spirit of NSD. Let me start with our university. I myself was a graduate of this university; I came to study in the department of geography in 1982, and stayed in the university for 7 years. So as a Beida graduate, everyone feels a special bond to this university. I always also ask myself why this university is so attractive to myself. So in 2006, as a faculty representative I gave a speech to the commencement, and discussed the PKU spirit. I can just summarize the PKU spirit in simple words. PKU is attractive to so many students because of two things. One is intellectual freedom. It is a simple word to say intellectual freedom. But in today’s China, it is actually not that easy, it is very difficult. For that we must thank our university’s leadership, they raise an umbrella above the particular and brand  the university, and firmly protect  intellectual freedom in this university. You may hear a lot of things about Peking University. But the most important thing is that in this university we have produced a lot of thinking, a lot of thoughts that have influenced China. Harvard probably is the most famous university in the whole world, but I don’t think any university can compete with Peking University, in the sense that it has been linked with the history of this country so much. Think that the modern history of China, it has been firmly and closely conected with this university, starting with WUXU BIANFA, the first real reform ever in China, and our university was born. Then in 1919, when the May Forth Movement got started, this university was the heart of it. And actually it produced so many very influential leaders including several founders of the Communist Party and then through the years in People’s Republic period of time, BEI DA has also been in the forefront of the social movements, especially in 1989. This university played the strong role, and I am proud that I was part of that although I was a small potato in this big movement. So that is the intellectual freedom in this university.

The university graduates may not become national leaders, may not become CEOs of big companies, but every graduate has this strong conviction that I am independent, I am an independent thinker, I can contribute to this society with my independent thinking. That’s very important, especially for China today.

The second spirit of this university is diversity. This started since the Cai Yuanpei’s years: this university has emphasized very much on diversity, even in the heydays of economic planning, this university was diverse, and today of course. It must be the most diverse university in China.

As a student, you can just stand up and challenge the professors, and professors won’t ask: who are you? How can you challenge me? This cannot happen in this university. And also because of that, our university leaders actually don’t treat themselves as leaders. They are servants, they are truly servants, I have to say. They listen to professors and professors listen to students. This diversity is very important for intellectual innovation and contribution to academia, and also to the development of China at large.

Coming to NSD, just like Professor Han Qide said, NSD is the best manifestation of the Peking University spirit. Let me just tell you a little bit about the historical roots of the NSD. The first is deeply into 1980s. Professor Lin Yifu, Zhou Qiren, Zhang Weiying and some other people were very active in 1980s, and they formed the group many of you don’t know, it’s called Nong Fa Zu, Rural Development Group. That was a small group, actually it’s not small, it’s a group of young university students who just left the countryside, you know after the 10 years in the countryside, came back to the university. They were mainly from Peking University and Renmin University. And they were so concerned about the future of China, they wanted to have reform on China. So they began to form a group called the Rural Development Group, and then this group in the middle of 1980’s involved into two institutes, they no longer existe today. One is so called TI GAI SHUO, the reform institute and the other one is Development Institute. They hosted a lot of young scholars at that time. And they were so active, studying China, studying real issues out of China, and they proposed so many reform initiatives to the leadership.

And because of 1989, those two institutes were forced to dissolve, but our center, you know, CCER, in 1994 kept some of them because Professor Lin was a member of Development Institute. Why this is important? This is important because NSD is unique, not just because all our professors were trained aboard, it is unique also because or mostly because we look at the real issues in China, we don’t just introduce the most advanced textbooks into China, we did that, but the most important thing is that we study China, we look at China seriously and we devote ourselves to the improvement of welfare of Chinese people, and also the rules of law and integrity of the government.

The other root is from United States, there is an organization still today called CES, China Economist Society. Many of our professors were members of this society when they studied in United States. Some of them were even founders of the society, for example, Professor Lin Yifu, Professor Yi Gang and Professor Hai Wen. At the end, seven CES presidents joined us. Starting with Professor Yi Gang, Hai Wen, Chen Ping,  down to Zhang Xiaohu. So we have attracted a lot of highly talented economists, management scientists to come back to China and to our school. Not just because we have a core group of people, mostly because our school puts emphasis on studying real issues in China. That’s very important for our MBA teaching. Most of us are economists, so we offer economic courses, especially to our EMBA students. For our regular MBA classes, we try to follow the world standard management science curriculum, but we are also going to provide the students a taste of  how economists think, how economists think about the world, think of the economy. We are going to offer lectures to our part time and full time students.

Our school is very diverse, also in the sense that our professors have different political stands and different approaches to research. So you can find the more pro-market professors, like Professor Zhou Qiren, Professor Zhang Weiying and Professor Liu Guo’en who firmly believe that markets play a larger role in China. And we have had the debates between Liu Guo’en and the more left-inclined the professors like Professor Li Ling who called for more government involvement. We don’t feel that’s our obstacle for us to work together and to teach our students. As I said it is also very important to do academic research. If your institutes were just compromised with people thinking the same and behaving the same, I don’t think that institute would produce great ideas because professors don’t debayr, don’t discuss things. Exactly because we have professors from different worlds, believe in different things that we can produce varied economic research results. And also provide solid policy advices to the government. 
         
Looking to the future, NSD is going to become a comprehensive multi- disciplinary institute within Peking University. It is going to be probably, if you want me to lay a model, it is the Kennedy School in Harvard University.

So we are going to have, say, 20-25 economists, but then 10-15 professors in management. Then we are also going to hire professors from other disciplines, as matter of fact, we already have professors in political science, education and demography.

In the future, we are going to recruit more people from other disciplines. With those we want to build a strong school offering teaching, research and policy advising at the same time. Later on we are going to show you a video of our future campus, we are building a new campus outside the PKU main campus to the west side. Currently the Langrun Garden occupies a large piece of land, but the space is very limited, we only have 2000 square meters. With our new facilities, we are going to have 10 times that, 20000 square meters. We are also going to have good sports facilities including a full-court basketball court, so you can play basketball, and also badminton and other activities, just within our school. I hope in 3 years’ time, sorry, only in 3 years’ time, we are going to be able to finish that new campus. And with that, NSD, and also BIMBA is going to become the most luxury business school in China, and probably in the world, I have to say. I have never seen a business school that has such good facilities including sports facilities just inside their buildings. And we are going to have all those things.
So once again, welcome to BIMBA, welcome to the NSD big family. As I said, we here are offering services to our students. If you have questions, any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to write directly to me or to Professor Zhang, or to any professors and staff, you are just welcome. Thank you.     

 

Prof. Yao Yang: The Spirit of Peking University

Sep 05-2014   



Everyone at Peking University, even after graduating for many years will have an emotional bond to the school. This special bond, according to Prof. Yao Yang, comes from two points. First is the Peking University spirit of ‘independence’, it is well known that Peking University has an inexorable link with Chinese history; it is a platform for free thinking and independent teaching. Second is Peking University’s diversity, which benefits from Cai Yuanpei’s call for “free thinking and tolerance”. At Peking University, you can challenge authority; professors think of themselves are providing a service rather than leaders and stress the importance of learning from each other.

RT0A0800

Ok, good afternoon everyone. As today, I like to welcome you all to join NSD, you are going to become one of members of the big, big ever growing family.

I was asked to speak or introduce you guys to the spirit of this university, and also the spirit of NSD. Let me start with our university. I myself was a graduate of this university; I came to study in the department of geography in 1982, and stayed in the university for 7 years. So as a Beida graduate, everyone feels a special bond to this university. I always also ask myself why this university is so attractive to myself. So in 2006, as a faculty representative I gave a speech to the commencement, and discussed the PKU spirit. I can just summarize the PKU spirit in simple words. PKU is attractive to so many students because of two things. One is intellectual freedom. It is a simple word to say intellectual freedom. But in today’s China, it is actually not that easy, it is very difficult. For that we must thank our university’s leadership, they raise an umbrella above the particular and brand  the university, and firmly protect  intellectual freedom in this university. You may hear a lot of things about Peking University. But the most important thing is that in this university we have produced a lot of thinking, a lot of thoughts that have influenced China. Harvard probably is the most famous university in the whole world, but I don’t think any university can compete with Peking University, in the sense that it has been linked with the history of this country so much. Think that the modern history of China, it has been firmly and closely conected with this university, starting with WUXU BIANFA, the first real reform ever in China, and our university was born. Then in 1919, when the May Forth Movement got started, this university was the heart of it. And actually it produced so many very influential leaders including several founders of the Communist Party and then through the years in People’s Republic period of time, BEI DA has also been in the forefront of the social movements, especially in 1989. This university played the strong role, and I am proud that I was part of that although I was a small potato in this big movement. So that is the intellectual freedom in this university.

The university graduates may not become national leaders, may not become CEOs of big companies, but every graduate has this strong conviction that I am independent, I am an independent thinker, I can contribute to this society with my independent thinking. That’s very important, especially for China today.

The second spirit of this university is diversity. This started since the Cai Yuanpei’s years: this university has emphasized very much on diversity, even in the heydays of economic planning, this university was diverse, and today of course. It must be the most diverse university in China.

As a student, you can just stand up and challenge the professors, and professors won’t ask: who are you? How can you challenge me? This cannot happen in this university. And also because of that, our university leaders actually don’t treat themselves as leaders. They are servants, they are truly servants, I have to say. They listen to professors and professors listen to students. This diversity is very important for intellectual innovation and contribution to academia, and also to the development of China at large.

Coming to NSD, just like Professor Han Qide said, NSD is the best manifestation of the Peking University spirit. Let me just tell you a little bit about the historical roots of the NSD. The first is deeply into 1980s. Professor Lin Yifu, Zhou Qiren, Zhang Weiying and some other people were very active in 1980s, and they formed the group many of you don’t know, it’s called Nong Fa Zu, Rural Development Group. That was a small group, actually it’s not small, it’s a group of young university students who just left the countryside, you know after the 10 years in the countryside, came back to the university. They were mainly from Peking University and Renmin University. And they were so concerned about the future of China, they wanted to have reform on China. So they began to form a group called the Rural Development Group, and then this group in the middle of 1980’s involved into two institutes, they no longer existe today. One is so called TI GAI SHUO, the reform institute and the other one is Development Institute. They hosted a lot of young scholars at that time. And they were so active, studying China, studying real issues out of China, and they proposed so many reform initiatives to the leadership.

And because of 1989, those two institutes were forced to dissolve, but our center, you know, CCER, in 1994 kept some of them because Professor Lin was a member of Development Institute. Why this is important? This is important because NSD is unique, not just because all our professors were trained aboard, it is unique also because or mostly because we look at the real issues in China, we don’t just introduce the most advanced textbooks into China, we did that, but the most important thing is that we study China, we look at China seriously and we devote ourselves to the improvement of welfare of Chinese people, and also the rules of law and integrity of the government.

The other root is from United States, there is an organization still today called CES, China Economist Society. Many of our professors were members of this society when they studied in United States. Some of them were even founders of the society, for example, Professor Lin Yifu, Professor Yi Gang and Professor Hai Wen. At the end, seven CES presidents joined us. Starting with Professor Yi Gang, Hai Wen, Chen Ping,  down to Zhang Xiaohu. So we have attracted a lot of highly talented economists, management scientists to come back to China and to our school. Not just because we have a core group of people, mostly because our school puts emphasis on studying real issues in China. That’s very important for our MBA teaching. Most of us are economists, so we offer economic courses, especially to our EMBA students. For our regular MBA classes, we try to follow the world standard management science curriculum, but we are also going to provide the students a taste of  how economists think, how economists think about the world, think of the economy. We are going to offer lectures to our part time and full time students.

Our school is very diverse, also in the sense that our professors have different political stands and different approaches to research. So you can find the more pro-market professors, like Professor Zhou Qiren, Professor Zhang Weiying and Professor Liu Guo’en who firmly believe that markets play a larger role in China. And we have had the debates between Liu Guo’en and the more left-inclined the professors like Professor Li Ling who called for more government involvement. We don’t feel that’s our obstacle for us to work together and to teach our students. As I said it is also very important to do academic research. If your institutes were just compromised with people thinking the same and behaving the same, I don’t think that institute would produce great ideas because professors don’t debayr, don’t discuss things. Exactly because we have professors from different worlds, believe in different things that we can produce varied economic research results. And also provide solid policy advices to the government. 
         
Looking to the future, NSD is going to become a comprehensive multi- disciplinary institute within Peking University. It is going to be probably, if you want me to lay a model, it is the Kennedy School in Harvard University.

So we are going to have, say, 20-25 economists, but then 10-15 professors in management. Then we are also going to hire professors from other disciplines, as matter of fact, we already have professors in political science, education and demography.

In the future, we are going to recruit more people from other disciplines. With those we want to build a strong school offering teaching, research and policy advising at the same time. Later on we are going to show you a video of our future campus, we are building a new campus outside the PKU main campus to the west side. Currently the Langrun Garden occupies a large piece of land, but the space is very limited, we only have 2000 square meters. With our new facilities, we are going to have 10 times that, 20000 square meters. We are also going to have good sports facilities including a full-court basketball court, so you can play basketball, and also badminton and other activities, just within our school. I hope in 3 years’ time, sorry, only in 3 years’ time, we are going to be able to finish that new campus. And with that, NSD, and also BIMBA is going to become the most luxury business school in China, and probably in the world, I have to say. I have never seen a business school that has such good facilities including sports facilities just inside their buildings. And we are going to have all those things.
So once again, welcome to BIMBA, welcome to the NSD big family. As I said, we here are offering services to our students. If you have questions, any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to write directly to me or to Professor Zhang, or to any professors and staff, you are just welcome. Thank you.