In the international education arena, there is no argument that
both the prestigious Harvard University and Oxford University have
become the symbol of success throughout the world. At the ongoing
Chinese-Foreign University Forum held in Huairou County, Beijing,
from July 22 Aug 1 and participated by about 100 headmasters from
renowned universities at home and abroad, Neil Rudenstine,
president emeritus of Harvard University, who retired last year
after 10 years of leadership, and Sir Colin Lucas, current
vice-chancellor of Oxford University, both revealed their secrets
in managing their respective universities.
"We hope the Harvard education can prepare students to continue to
learn even 50 years after graduation. Only by keeping on learning
can they keep up with the world's development. At the same time,
Harvard is able to shape great leaders in society," said Professor
Rudenstine in an interview with journalists. "A good university
should help students understand the theory of life-long
learning."
Though both deeply rooted in their own cultures, these two
world-leading universities share something in common in terms of
teaching issues. "As for Oxford University, we encourage students
to challenge what they are told. It is no good for them to write
down exactly what teachers have told them; instead, they should
have their independent thinking as well as their own view about
what the material means," said Sir Colin Lucas.
His remark was interestingly echoed by Professor Rudenstine, who
said: "We expect students to be engaged in discovering, creating
new knowledge, and developing ideas to the best of their ability."
He also emphasized the creativeness of the students' academic
pursuit and the diversity of their choices in research subjects. In
responding to the question of what is the most valuable experience
that Harvard could give students, he said confidently that it could
provide them with an excellent learning atmosphere; besides,
students coming from over 100 countries endow the university with
rich cultural flavors. In his eyes, the frequent contact and
exchanges among students from different cultural backgrounds and
traditions are a kind of education that will benefit students their
entire life.
Talking about the management of modern universities, both Professor
Rudenstine and Sir Colin Lucas placed much weight on making wise
choices. Faced with the hard battle to attract investment from
society for university development, Sir Colin Lucas said: "We have
to make wise choices as to which fields we should invest in and
where to put our main efforts." In this case, Professor Rudenstein
extended it to a larger context, speaking of country instead of one
school. In his opinion, a country should make wise choices in
developing a few outstanding universities, to make them much better
and more competitive, while sparing no efforts to support other
universities.
In
respect to the evaluation systems undertaken by these two
prestigious universities, they share one thing in common as both
regard wide interest and innovative capacity as important standards
for both students and faculty. In Harvard, besides the standard
test, reference letter and interview, some specialties, no matter
whether in music, sport, art or other fields will also be taken
into consideration in assessing a student. "We are expecting our
students to have larger interests outside their purely academic
field; at the same time, we are trying to create a diversity of
ideas," said Professor Rudenstine. In terms of the evaluation of
the faculty, exceptional excellence in their academic field is a
precondition for both universities, such as publication in key
journals. In addition, "Our faculty needs to be creative and
innovative. They should be able to think constantly in new ways and
with new perspectives," Professor Rudenstine added.
Regarding the tendency for students to choose popular majors, while
giving much less attention to those purely academic or completely
research-oriented disciplines, Professor Rudenstine expressed his
real worry. "As a comprehensive university, we must guarantee a
large range of sciences; each major has to be represented and has
to be strong. We have to bear in mind that the economy of the
university is not dependent on what students choose. If we just
take care of what is happening now, and neglect other courses or
subjects, then it will be difficult for universities to maintain
high quality teaching in a long run. One way to counteract it is to
endow the related professors with certain scholarships to ensure
that every subject can be taught. As a matter of fact, as long as
they are worthwhile, we pay to keep them."
During this Chinese-Foreign University Presidents Forum, which is
especially dedicated for Chinese and foreign university heads to
exchange views on management of modern universities, both Chinese
and foreign delegates had their own expectations. "Firstly, I hope
that this forum can contribute to the debate which is going on in
China on how to organize and develop universities; secondly, I am
expecting to learn from our Chinese peers how Chinese universities
work and how we can collaborate with each other." Sir Colin said.
Similarly, Professor Rudenstein listed "international studies" as
one of his priorities to develop a university, with another two
issues concerning broad-based basic biological and medical science
research and more application of IT knowledge. In this regard, to
make Harvard more global, he expects full academic exchanges and
cooperation with Chinese universities as well as other good
universities from every country.
Overall, for these two prestigious universities with a rather long
history in providing best education opportunities, a dynamic
education and a liberal system to encourage innovation and
diversity directly contribute to their excellence. Just as Sir
Colin said: "In order to be a good university head, you should
think about the future more than the present. You need to be
patient and you should be both encouraging and skeptical."
(china.org.cn by staff reporter Feng Shu, July 26, 2002)