BUILDING A WORLD CLASS

UNIVERSITY & GLOBAL

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS:
How can we grow in this confusing 21st century?

Da Hsuan Feng
Senior Executive Vice President
National Cheng Kung University
Charles Dickens
1812 - 1870
A Tale of Two
Cities
1859
“It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of
belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season
of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it
was the winter of despair, ……..”
My life is a personification
of what Dickens said….
Sun Yat-Sen
mausoleum
 My life 1
• First “citizen”: British Subject Passport states
that (Bearer has no right to abode in the
British Isles.)
• Second citizen: Malaysia (1964-65)
• Third citizen: Singapore (1965-1982)
• Fourth citizen: United States (1982-now)
• Future?

Guiness World Record of citizenships?

 My life 2
• M. Russell Wehr Professor of Theoretical Physics, Drexel
University

• US National Science Foundation Program Director of

Theoretical Physics

• Vice President, Science Applications International

Corporations (Fortune 500)

• Vice President for Research and Economic Developments,

University of Texas at Dallas

• Senior Executive Vice President, National Cheng Kung

University
 KL: from this………..…to this

In less than half a

century!!!
Guiding principles
 “If you want to
understand today,
you have to search
yesterday.”

Pearl S. Buck
Ask upstream
question
 My outside and
perhaps naïve
perception of the
University of Malaya
The late Alan
MacDiarmid
2000 Nobel
laureate in
chemistry

“Science is
People!”
 Celebrating the treasures of topological
twists.
…. Such is the story of the skyrmion: a concept that has
had several makeovers since it was first formulated in the
late 1950s by the British physicist Tony
Hilton Royle Skyrme.

Nature 2010
 Skyrme …(in 1961) take up a Senior
Lectureship in the Mathematics Department
of the University of Malaya. He
remained there until 1964 when he returned
to England to take up the Chair in
Mathematical Physics at Birmingham in
succession to Peierls…
One great man does not a great
university make!

But one great man who walked

these grounds indicates that
University of Malaya has the
necessary history and potential
for greatness, and the time to
reach it is in the 21st century!
 I should make it clear that while there are
many universities in Malaysia today,
probably not all could, or should, assume
flagship status. University of Malaya, with its rich
history, its broad scope and its society’s perception, is
certainly one of them. As such, it has added
responsibility, beyond educating
enlightened and forward looking leaders in
all arenas, to be one of, if not the,
Malaysia’s intellectual and economic
engines.
In my humble opinion, this
is the meaning of building
University of Malaya as a
world class university.
No more, no less!
 We in higher
education faces at
least FOUR profound
challenges
211(Mainland)

985 (Mainland)

5Y50B (Taiwan)
 How to improve top
universities in a country for
them to become “top 100
globally”﹖
1. Education integrity

2. Academic agility?

3. Intellectual courage?

4. Cultural relevance and

importance?
 Global rankings of universities:
A check of reality!
• Having enormous impatience, Asian universities want to
be recognized by their peers globally. UM and NCKU are
no exception.

• With robust economic development in the past several

decades, and with education high on society’s agenda,
developing outstanding research universities ranks high
on national priority and pride.

• Because building great universities is a “new” venture for

Asia Pacific, there is urgent and understandable need for
having some numerical indices for high level decision
makers to make decision to dispense large amount of
educational funds.

• Ranking become one of the most natural ways to take

into consideration of funds distribution.
 Ranking Pros and Cons

• Pros: It is a number people can hold on to

and make judgments.
• Cons: There is a proliferation of rankings.
Which one or which group should one
consider?
Principle of measurement
A point depicting the
measurement

The width of the

measurement is the
estimation of the
error incurred

This data won Sam Ting

the Nobel prize!
 The problem of any given
individual ranking system is the
following: If University A is
ranked 50, then it is by definition
better than University B which is
ranked 51 and not as good as
University C which is ranked 49.

No error bar is given!

 Stability vs.
instability of
rankings
As an example, take a look at the
Shanghai Jiaotong University
ranking
Line Chart (World top 10)
Line Chart (Asia top 20)
Line Chart (Chinese universities)
Gap between Six Universities in Ranking 

Harvard NUS NTU NCKU NTHU NCTU

 Reality check
• There is confusion
• Decision makers need indices to make
decisions.
• Ranking seems to provide indices
• Ranking seems to have some amorphous
social acceptance.
• Ranking is here to stay, at least for
awhile.
 SJTU Ranking
scores

indicators
 QS Ranking

scores

indicators
SJTU Ranking Top 200 Scatter plot
 We got work to do…
• Top ranked universities have reached structural stability.
• Middle ranked universities are soft in structural stability.
• By and large, number of papers published in good
journals in Asia Pacific universities are approaching
western universities
• Significant discrepancy between APU and Top Ranked
universities in quality (except Japan.)
• Japanese universities achieved world standard without
abandoning their inherent culture.
• Social science and humanities are extremely hard to
take into account, as cultural relevance become more
pronounce.
 All this happened in a mere four to five decades…

In thermodynamics, there is a great concept called

NONADIABATIC EXPANSION

The growth of Asia Pacific went through precisely

such an expansion. It is natural that people are
confused and bewildered, wondering what this is all
about while basking in good life in the 21st century.

Flagship university of Malaysia such as University of

Malaya, MUST ASSIST the nation, its people, to
figure it out. This is what building world class
universities is all about!
Education
integrity
 What is “education?” Its holistic. Its
elementary schools, middle schools,
universities. Its academic, intellectual,
education principles, institutional
managements,…and more…!

Deficiencies in any of the

above would constitute
violation of integrity!
 The impact of integrity
on education is the same
as air to human and
water to fish…
 Without integrity,
successful meeting
the other three
challenges would
mean NOTHING!
So I will not discuss
that today.
 Please allow me to
leverage three pieces of
history I learned in the
past three and a half
years in Asia to
illustrate the three
challenges I mentioned.
Academic
agility
“..Bill Boeing. He hired (1916) Tsu Wong (王助) as
the company's first aeronautical engineer to replace
Boeing's original business partner, Conrad
Westerveldt. An engineering graduate from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tsu Wong
became the first chief engineer at Boeing…”
Phil Condit, Boeing CEO, NAE Speech in 1997
踏破鐵鞋無覓處，
得來全不費功夫
 Tsoo Wong Bio
1893 Born in Peking
1909 Qing Dynasty government sent to UK
1915 Graduated from Durham UniversityM
Mechanical Engineering。Same year entered MIT
aeronautical engineering department
1916 Graduate from MIT with MSc。Same year
hired by Bill Boeing to be his new company first
chief engineer.
1917 Returned to China and built a robust Chinese
aeronautical program。
1955-1965 Taught in NCKU as Prof of Mechanical
Engineer.
 1947

Tsoo Wong,

Qian Xue-Sen (錢
學森,) Father of
China’s Rocket
program.
1955-1965 Tsoo Wong in NCKU
with students
Why would MIT in 1916
had a full academic
program in aeronautical
engineering﹖
Wilbur Wright Orville Wright

In 1903, Wright brothers proved that

humanity with the assistance of a
mechanical device can fly﹗
 In a short span of a decade, without the
proven fact that aeroplanes could be a real
business venture, MIT built a complete
aeronautical engineering program.

This is ACADEMIC AGILITY!

Asia universities must have

academic agility to be world class.
 It was remarkable, even
profound, that at the era
where Asians were almost
at best second class
citizens in the United
States, Mr. Boeing was
able to develop a
company’s business
culture which value
INTELLECT and not skin
color! This establishes the
success foundation of
Boeing as a company.
Intellectual
courage
Why did Tsoo Wong
chose to study
aeronautical
engineering in MIT
1916﹖
Before the RENAISSANCE,
global centers of technologies
lie in East Asia (especially
China) and the Arab
world. ﹗
 Crab
Nabula
蟹皇星

1054

(observed by
Chinese and
Arab
astronomers)
Francis Bacon Leonardo da
(1561-1626) Vinci
(1452-1519)

Nicolaus
Copernicus
(1483-1546)

Rene Descartes
(1596-1650) Martin Luther
(1483-1546)
 19th century

Europe became
Global center
of intellectual
excellence!
伯努利（D. Bernoulli，1700-1782）克莱姆（G. Cramer，1704-1752）
克莱罗（A. Clairaut，1713-1765）达朗贝尔（d’Alembert，1717-1783）
兰伯特（J. Lambert，1728-1777）华林（E. Waring，1734-1798）
范德蒙德（Vandermonde，1735-1796）蒙日﹙Monge，1746-1818﹚
拉格朗日（Lagrange，1736-1814）拉普拉斯﹙Laplace，1749-1827﹚
勒让德（Legendre，1752-1833）阿冈（R. Argand，1768-1822）
柯西（Cauchy，1789-1857）莫比乌斯（Möbius，1790-1868）
罗巴切夫斯基（Lobachevsky，1792-1856）格林（Green，1793-1841）
波尔约（J. Bolyai，1802-1860）雅可比﹙Jacobi，1804-1851﹚
狄利克雷﹙Dirichlet，1805-1859﹚哈密尔顿（W. Hamilton，1805-1865）
刘维尔﹙Liouville，1809-1892﹚库默尔（Kummer，1810-1893）
魏尔斯特拉斯（Weierstrass，1815-1897）布尔（G. Boole，1815-1864）
斯托克斯（G. Stokes，1819-1903）凯莱（Cayley，1821-1895）
切比谢夫（Chebyshev，1821-1894）埃尔米特（Hermite，1822-1901）
爱森斯坦（Eisenstein，1823-1852）克罗内克﹙Kronecker，1823-1891﹚
开尔文（Kelvin，1824-1907）麦克斯威尔（J.Maxwell，1831-1879）
富克斯（L. Fuchs，1833-1902）贝尔特拉米（E. Beltrami，1835-1900）
索菲斯‧李（S. Lie，1842-1899）达布（Darboux，1842-1917）
施瓦兹（Schwartz，1843-1921）康托尔（Cantor，1845-1918）
弗罗贝尼乌斯（Frobenius，1849-1917）克莱因（Klein，1849-1925）
里奇（G. Ricci，1853-1925）马尔可夫﹙Markov，1856-1922﹚
比安奇（Bianchi，1856-1928）皮卡﹙C.E. Picard，1856-1941﹚
李雅普诺夫﹙Lyapunov，1857-1918﹚希尔伯特﹙Hilbert，1862-1943﹚
闵可夫斯基（Minkowski，1864-1909）阿达马（Hadamard，1865-1963）
卡斯特尔诺沃﹙G. Castelnuovo，1865-1952﹚
沃洛诺依（Voronoi，1865-1963）豪斯道夫（Hausdorff，1868-1942）
恩里格斯（F. Enriques，1871-1946）法诺（Fano，1871-1952）
波莱尔（E. Borel，1871-1956）列维-奇维塔（Levi-Civita，1873-1941）
勒贝格（Lebesgue，1875-1941）哈代（G. Hardy，1877-1947）
富比尼（Fubini，1879-1943）塞韦里（F. Severi，1879-1961）
伯克霍夫（Birkhoff，1884-1944）外尔（H. Weyl，1885-1955）
李特尔伍德（J. Littlewood，1885-1977）维纳（Wiener，1894-1964）
维诺格拉多夫（Vinogradov，1891-1983）西格尔（Siegel，1896-1981）
奈望林纳（Nevanlinna，1895-1980）扎里斯基（O. Zariski，1899-1986）
 It is my personal opinion
that the greatest scientific
discovery of the 19th
century is the work of
James Clark Maxwell,
whose development of
the Maxwell equations to
explain in totality the
elusive phenomena of
electromagnetic radiation
stunned the world.
Maxwell equations give a complete
understanding of electromagnetic
“radiation”
Maxwell 1831 - 1879
Chopin 1810 - 1849
Maxwell equations Chopin Nocturne
 In one year, from
1643-1644, the
Almighty played a big
big joke on China!
 The great Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911)
• 1644 First year of
the reign of
emperor Shun-Ji (順
治元年)

• 1643 Newton was

born
Outstanding 19th century European
universities propelled profound
intellectual and technological
developments and gave young people
in Europe then a platform for them
to build
INHERENT SELF CONFIDENCE.
 It is natural that an aspiring
Asian youth, such as Tsoo Wong,
in the beginning of the 20th
century who saw his country
experienced 300 years of
deterioration and humiliation
wanted to have intellectual
bravery!
There is no question that to
build a world class
university in the 21st
century, especially as the
nation’s flagship university,
producing generations of
alumni with intellectual
bravery is a must!
 Producing intellectually
brave students is another
mark of “world class”
If NCKU does not maintain
Tsoo Wong as its pride, it is
equivalent to Cambridge
University does not maintain
Newton or Maxwell as its
pride!
 Cultural
importance
 "... a university, in any worthy
sense of the term, must grow from
seed. It cannot be transplanted
from England or Germany in full
leaf and bearing. ... When the
American university appears, it will
not be a copy of foreign institutions,
or a hot-bed plant, but the slow and
natural outgrowth of American
social and political habits... The
American college is an institution
without a parallel; the American
university will be equally original."

Charles Eliot, Harvard President

1869-1909
 "... a university, in any worthy sense of the
term, must grow from seed. It cannot be
transplanted from England or United States
in full leaf and bearing. ... When the Asian
Pacific university appears, it will not be a
copy of foreign institutions, or a hot-bed
plant, but the slow and natural outgrowth of
Asian Pacific social and political habits...
The Asian Pacific college is an institution
without a parallel; the Asian Pacific
university will be equally original."
 So what is Asian Pacific
social and political habits that
NCKU is embedded in?

I asked myself that question

the day I arrived in NCKU!
History and my life
experience, like a
lighthouse, are my
guides!
 Singapore’s
Wai Ga Le Gong
(我跟你講)
is identical to Tainan’s
Wai Ga Le Gong
Xiamen

Quemoy

01
Kennedy Nixon
3rd Debate of Nixon-Kennedy
October 13, 1960
 1960﹐
Quemoy-Matsu
“became world
famous”
“Quemoy – Matsu”

was mentioned 16
times!
Quemoy four eras
 First era

Great
Confucianist
Zhu Xi (朱熹)

~900 years ago

 In 1156, in Sung
Dynasty, Zhu Xi (朱
熹) established
Yannan College in
Quemoy
(燕南書院). It
preceded Oxford
University and
Cambridge
University by 36 to
54 years respectively.
Second era

Cheng
Cheng-
Kung (鄭成
功)

~400 years
ago
Third era

Map of
Chinese
Migration
during the
1800s - year
1949
 Xia (廈門)-Quemoy(金
門)-Tainan (台南)
became the core cities
for Min-Nan culture(閩南
文化)thus impacting the
entire East and
Southeast Asia。
 Fourth Era

Communit Kuomingtang
Confrontation since 1949
From war to cold war to
peace to …
Quemoy = Golden Gate!
20th century Golden Gate Bridge
20 century Golden Gate bridge
signifies the rise of North
American intellectual and
economic power.

21 century Golden Gate bridge

signifies Asia’s rise?
To me, these men
transcend time and
space. They motivate
me to think about the
importance of culture,
and in this case
Chinese (not China)
culture is eternal.
Great universities
with this as culture
need to build its
greatness on such
underpinning.
20 century saw the rise of
intellectual and economic
landscape for North
America, especially
United States.
First half of 20 century
When Europe and Asia were turned upside
down by WWI and WWII, North America was
like a castle protected by a secured moat.
The moat is called Pacafic and Atlantic
oceans.
 Theodore von Kármán
Albert Einstein
1881 - 1963 1879-1955

John von Neumann Herman Weyl

1903-1957 1885-1955
 Nobel laureate in Medicine
in 1953 Fritz Albert
Lipmann "for his discovery
of co-enzyme A and its
importance for intermediary

metabolism".

Nobel laureate in Medicine

in 1964 Konrad Bloch "for
their discoveries
concerning the mechanism
and regulation of the
cholesterol and fatty acid
metabolism"
 Jascha Heifetz
1901-1981

Isaac Stern
1920-2001
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886 –
1969)
After 1933, Nazi political
pressure soon forced Mies to
close the government-financed
school. his style was rejected
by the Nazis as not "German"
in character. Frustrated and
unhappy, he left his homeland
reluctantly in 1937 and
accepted an offer to head the
department of architecture of
the newly established Illinois
Institute of Technology..
Supreme excellence !

Withou WWI and

WWII, such outstanding
intellects would not
move to North America.
 Such a massive transplantation of
intellects from Europe to North America
brought US universities from dormant to
brilliance! In merely 50 years, it redefined
many US universities to be the hallmark
of excellence!

It made Americans, especially

young Americans, developed
INHERENT SELF CONFIDENCE!
19 century﹕ Europe
20 century﹕ North
America
21 century﹕ Asia﹖
 We have heard often, almost to the
point of being a cliché, that 21st
century belongs to Asia. Ladies and
Gentlemen, if Asians, especially
young Asians, do not develop
inherent self confidence, just like the
youth of Europe and North America
developed theirs in the 19th and 20th
century respective, will the 21st
century truly be that of Asia’s﹖
 Nobel prize in literature
• 1913 • 2000
• Rabindranath • Gao Xingjian (b.
Tagore (1861-1941) 1940)
• … expressed in his 高行建
own English words, a ‧… has opened new
part of the literature of paths for the Chinese
the West novel and drama
 亞洲發展銀行
Closing comment at Conference on
Global Financial Crisis: Industrial
Restructuring
Psychological decoupling!
 Throughout the 20th century, Asia was
psychologically “coupled” to the West, and
understandably so. With superior economic and
intellectual strengths, it is quite natural that Asia
viewed the West as the ‘standard of excellence.’
However, after such a period as this with the West so
palpably exposing its social & economic weaknesses,
this may be the first time in the modern global
economy that Asia can psychologically
“DECOUPLE” from the West. This is not to suggest
that Asia should decouple economically and
intellectually from the West; rather, I am talking
about a “psychological decoupling” to undo a sense
of reliance on the West, without which it is unlikely
that Asia will develop a deep sense of inherent self-
confidence and without which the 21st century is
surely not to be the “Asian Century.
 Can great Asian
universities do this for
their students just as
European and North
American great
universities did it for their
students?
“Indeed, with Cai’s leadership, PKU became not just
the soul of Chinese universities, but in fact Chinese
history and culture of the 20 century. How do we
measure the “intangible impact” of PKU on the
culture of China, with Bai-Hua (白話modern
Chinese) movement, May 4th movement (五四運動,)
and so on. Is it even logical to consider that PKU is
not a “World Class University” when it has profound
impact on Chinese culture, with nearly quarter
humanity, for a century?”

DHF at SJTU Conference 2005

I am confident that
together we can
achieve this great
mission of the 21st
century
 “It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the
season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair, ……..”
Thank you Mr. Dickens
who “predicted” 150
years ago with such
vivid words to describe
Asia Pacific in the 21st
century﹗