His principle as a dean is: do not write professional papers, do not apply for projects

Qian Yingyi (born April 1956) is an economist. Qian Yingyi served as the Dean of Tsinghua School of Economics and Management from September 2006 to August 2018, serving four terms for a total of 12 years. This article is a recollection and evaluation of Qian Yingyi as the dean, "I hereby share.

I am now full of admiration for Qian Yingyi, and it is not easy for him to bring Tsinghua Economics and Management to today's status. Although its foundation is also very strong, it is undeniable that Qian Yingyi's contribution to Tsinghua Economics and Management is also indispensable. Moreover, I have read a lot of education articles written by Qian Yingyi, which are better than those written by those who are majoring in education, because he understands the running of the college.

At that time, Peking University carried out the reform of the personnel system, Zhang Weiying (born in Shaanxi in 1959, economist, Boya Distinguished Professor of Peking University, professor of the National School of Development of Peking University, and dean of Guanghua School of Management of Peking University from 2006 to 2010) led, and finally broke up, but the logic of the university written by Zhang has also become a model of education. From an economic point of view, university reform may be even more pronounced.

Universities are actually similar to enterprises now, especially state-owned enterprises, because there are too many problems in state-owned enterprises now, mainly because the system is rigid, and if you want to reform, it may be difficult to promote it for various reasons. Universities are typical of state ownership, where the government takes the lead in all reforms, or in other words, individuals do not have much say in the reforms. Zhang Weiying's efforts to push for the reform of Western universities are simply unadaptable, or in other words, traditional teachers simply do not accept his set. Although he thinks it is very good, but Chinese universities, even Peking University, do not have a suitable soil, but it can be used as an innovation, we are now advocating Chinese characteristics, and universities are the same, we cannot blindly copy the experience of the West, we must analyze specific problems in detail. University reform is particularly important. The reform of the personnel system is also a top priority. It is about whether or not university teachers can be motivated to work, because it is closely linked to salary.

Since Tsinghua University's teachers were forced to transfer their papers if they did not meet the standards, many teachers have been under great pressure. But can the so-called essay really reflect the real level of a teacher? Don't know that papers can be published by spending money? Why on Taobao, there are all kinds of paper writing agencies on the Internet, as long as the starting price is paid, as many papers can be published. So in such a situation, to really test the level of a university teacher, you can't just look at the paper.

If you can't be a teacher if you don't meet the standard papers, then most teachers are not qualified.

Now that we are still advocating the centrality of undergraduate teaching, how can we put the thesis index very important? This is a common problem in universities today, because there are too many, and more than one university problem, so we now feel that reform is a problem. But knowing what the problem is, we can prescribe the right medicine, and although it may take a lot of time, we have a direction to work on. The comparison knows the problem, but we don't change it, it's much stronger. Therefore, the reform of Chinese universities must know the problems in advance and then make changes, so that it can be effective, otherwise, we will have no effect at all. And reform is easy to go into a dead zone.

One of Qian Yingyi's contributions is the introduction of a large number of returnees, who are characterized by their youth and ability, both in teaching and scientific research. Faculty members are the primary factor in the development of the college. It can be said that there is no college whose faculty can guarantee that more than 80% of them are returnees, and the School of Management and Economics can do it.

Of course, this is not to say that returnees are necessarily good. There are also very powerful local cultivators, but it is just that returnees have a relatively broad vision, can jump out of the Chinese circle to see problems, and the way of thinking is also different from domestic doctors, Qian Yingyi uses his influence, coupled with Tsinghua's signboard, many people are also willing to come. At present, the faculty of SME is among the top in the country, and the vitality of young people lies in their vitality, and they also want to teach and engage in research, and they have upward motivation. And Tsinghua's platform is very good, they have more development opportunities, although if they go to ordinary schools, they may be paid more, but if they are not on Tsinghua's platform, the speed of rise is not so fast. Therefore, the concept of preferring to be a chicken head rather than a phoenix tail is actually very rare in college, and many people just want to use the platform to go up quickly. I am an exception, I chose a school with a relatively high salary because I have to solve the problem of livelihood, but the platform of my school is really average, and it is not easy to climb up.

SME has also introduced many well-known Chinese scholars, which are introduced as the Thousand Talents Program or Changjiang Scholars, which is more conducive to improving the strength of the discipline. Tsinghua University's goal is to be world-class, not only to cultivate high-quality students in China, but also to attract foreign students to apply for the examination, so the faculty must be strong. And we know that Tsinghua undergraduates are inherently excellent, and if they encounter very bad teachers, they will certainly have their own judgments. Therefore, teachers are very important to Qian Yingyi, which is also the reason for his success. He will not blindly attract talents, if he wants to bring them in, he must do things, and if he can't do things, he will not want them. For example, when he implements various reforms, although there are sometimes objections, most of them will support and understand him, as long as he is not for his own selfishness, but for the development of the academy, he can generally be recognized. There are many majors in economics and management, and the training is from undergraduate to doctoral education at all levels, so the teachers must be fine, and the second is also a certain number, otherwise the problem of the student-teacher ratio cannot be solved.

In the past ten years, Qian Yingyi has not written a single paper on economics, but has published many articles on education. In fact, his approach does not mean that his profession is not good, but according to the responsibilities of the dean. The responsibility of the dean is not to engage in scientific research, but to manage the college well, if the college is not well managed, then what should the dean do, is the dean an an ordinary professor? If Qian Ying wants to do academics, then he can apply for a thousand scholars and devote himself to academics. But since he is a dean, and Tsinghua University has great expectations for the School of Management and Economics, among the liberal arts departments, the School of Management and Economics should be a good pacesetter. Now the goal of SME has been basically achieved, and among all the liberal arts departments of Tsinghua University, SME is the strongest.

As soon as Qian Ying knew what he was going to do, he had put himself in the position of a manager, what is the responsibility of the dean, that is, to manage the college, such as attracting people, such as formulating the development plan of the college, etc., these are what the dean needs to do. Qian Yingyi started a reform in the school, compared with all-English teaching, using foreign teaching methods, strengthening the interaction between teachers and students, holding more academic salons, allowing more students to participate, and strengthening communication and cooperation with top international brother universities, such as jointly training graduate students, etc., he always put the development of the college in the first place, and will not consider his own academic problems. If he wants to do research, he can wait until his term is over and then specialize in academic research, which is perfectly fine. But during his tenure, he thought about how to push the college further, which is difficult for ordinary deans to do.

If a big professor like Qian Yingyi wants to apply for a project, it is very easy, but he feels that he does not have enough time to engage in management, so he is not allowed to engage in academic research. We know that academic research cannot be distracted, like many professors nowadays, they are responsible for applying for topics and then letting graduate students write papers, this kind of professor is not responsible at all, and the quality of the graduate students trained will definitely not be too high. Therefore, Qian Yingyi also knows this, he pays attention to teaching quality and scientific research, just hoping that teachers can produce more results, so that graduate students can grow into academic strength, even if they do not engage in academic research in the future and go to work in enterprises, they must also have a sense of research, this is certain. I think we don't have too much knowledge, the more we master, the better, and it helps you to think across disciplines, don't get stuck in a single discipline, for example, economics can combine physics and mathematics, Hong Yongmiao used to study physics, and now he has become a world-class econometrician. Qian Yingyi's achievements in promoting this area are very great, and without him, the reform of management would not have been so fast, and the effect was so obvious. I don't think it's an exaggeration to attribute all this to Qian Yingyi. It is under his leadership that the teaching reform of the school has achieved remarkable results, and also won the first prize of national teaching achievements, Qian Yingyi's efforts have not been in vain, Premier Zhu is also very satisfied with his reform, at least the strength of the School of Management and Economics is now ranked first in the country, and it is not lagging behind in the world, which is also the luck of Chinese universities. Universities are made up of colleges, and if the colleges are run well, the universities will naturally get better.

Qian Yingyi herself said that the dean is not good, and she also has to face questions from various teachers, such as why she can't be rated as excellent and why her efforts are not recognized. I think this is also a problem that every college encounters. But the premise is that we are all for the development of the college, for example, the most important thing in the university is the evaluation of professional titles. Every teacher's first job in the university is to evaluate the professional title, and when the professional title is up, they feel like a teacher. Therefore, in addition to teaching, they have to work hard to publish papers. Qian Yingyi must also know the importance of this matter. For example, Ganyang was beaten (on January 7, 2016, at the annual faculty assessment meeting of the School of Liberal Arts of Sun Yat-sen University, Dean Ganyang was slapped several times by Li Siya, a young teacher of the college, because Ganyang "delayed the promotion of young teachers' titles") The reason why it caused a sensation is because Ganyang interfered in the evaluation of professional titles and became the dean's Yiyantang, and the teachers below will of course be dissatisfied. As a dean, you can't suppress someone's title evaluation just because you don't like him.

In this regard, Qian Yingyi is much better than Gan Yang, that is, according to the academic committee of the academy and the professional title evaluation committee of the academy, everything is based on grades, and does not talk about personal relationships. In this way, the teachers are also convinced, and if they can't evaluate themselves, they will find the reason from themselves, instead of attributing the reason to the outside world or the college. In this way, everyone's motivation will come. In addition to completing teaching, they will also engage in academic research every year, so as to effectively combine teaching and scientific research. I think this kind of atmosphere is the best, and it can fully mobilize everyone's enthusiasm. Academics must be above the administration, and the development of this college has a future, and if the full-time teachers are all controlled by the administrators, then the college will be finished sooner or later. Executives themselves don't understand professional knowledge, they are just managers. Only scholars themselves understand scholars. Therefore, some scholars now say that the evaluation of our professional titles must be based on an academic point of view, and those who are officials cannot participate. But when there are interests, those who are in power have to think, this is a contradiction, so what do we want. For the development of the school, we must start from an academic point of view, everything is based on academics as the highest ideal, if we can do this, I think each college can have the development trend of the School of Management and Economics, when our concept is determined, we can attract people and recruit better students. This is the soft culture of the college, and we must understand it, and the dean must understand it.