EVC Simon Joins Top University Leaders to Discuss Higher Education, Innovation and Creativity

‘Duke Kunshan University’s proposed liberal arts undergraduate curriculum is being designed to address many of the long-standing critical needs of China’s higher education system,’ pointed out Dr. Denis Simon, Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University at the THE (Times Higher Education) Asia Universities Summit held at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology June 19-21.

The theme of this year’s THE Asia Universities Summit, ‘How Universities Nurture Creativity and Innovation’, is a topic of paramount importance in today’s world. University presidents, leading scholars and business leaders from around the world gathered in Hong Kong to examine the major challenges facing universities as they try to develop and nurture creative and innovative talent in the 21st century. At the ‘China Universities and Creativity and Innovation’ presidents’ session chaired by Dr. Joseph Sung, the president of Chinese University of Hong Kong, Simon joined three presidents from top Chinese universities to exchange experiences and ideas about how universities can play a more effective role in driving innovation.

As the newest frontier of Chinese higher education, Sino-foreign joint-venture universities have been positioned as a potentially important source of innovation in pedagogy as well as education philosophy since the inception of this concept. According to Simon, the Duke Kunshan project was particularly welcomed by China’s Ministry of Education as it holds promise for bringing in a platform to advance liberal arts education in China.

‘Duke Kunshan represents an effort to create a full-scale, interdisciplinary, highly-integrated liberal arts platform for the undergraduate programs in China,’ said Simon. He went on to note that ‘Duke Kunshan University hopes to serve as a type of ‘technology transfer mechanism’ that will allow Chinese universities to learn and adopt best practices from the Duke Kunshan academic experiences operating in China. Our Chinese counterparts can pick and choose from both our administrative and academic practices and adopt those core elements they believe best fit with China’s evolving talent needs for building an innovation-oriented economy.

But what are the benefits of a liberal arts curriculum? What gaps can it fill? As Simon pointed out, one major problem with the undergraduate education of traditional Chinese universities lies in the ‘mismatch between what students are learning in universities and what the labor market wants.’

‘One of the ironies about China today is that even though approximately 7 million undergraduate students graduate every year, the reality is that China has a talent shortage – employers, research institutes and companies can’t find the right talent they need,’ he said.

Duke Kunshan’s liberal arts curriculum is specifically designed to address this problem and produce next-generation leaders. Simon summarized the most noticeable advantages of this curriculum in six core elements: critical thinking and creativity, rooted globalism, collaborative problem solving, emphasis on research and the link to practice, wise leadership, and purposeful life.

Speaking on how to foster students’ creativity, he said, ‘Duke Kunshan’s liberal arts curriculum would encourage students to think out of box and search inside themselves to find original answers to challenging questions.’ Most Chinese students who attended the Global Learning Semester program at Duke Kunshan were very reserved at the beginning,’ Simon noticed. ‘Our professors gave the students a tremendous amount of room to share their different viewpoints.’ He pointed out that as the students gradually acquainted themselves with each other and with the international students in the nurturing environment, they would begin to embrace the learning environment that values open exchange and discussion. ‘Getting students to feel comfortable with the question ‘What do you think?’ is not always easy,’ said Simon. ‘But once students sense it is all right to take some risks and share their ideas, the level of intellectual discourse can be extremely rich and rewarding for students and their professors.’

As a university influenced and informed by both Chinese and American traditions of higher education, Duke Kunshan has placed significant weight on both ‘globalization’ and ‘cultural roots’ since its inception. And this emphasis on ‘rooted globalism’ will also be manifested in its undergraduate curriculum. ‘We want to train students that are globally engaged citizens, but also have local connectivity,’ said Simon.

Then Simon argued that in higher education, equipping students with the ability to translate theories into practical solutions is as important as teaching them to understand the theories. This point was echoed by Zhaohui Wu, president of Zhejiang University, who introduced Zhejiang University’s effort to align research with industry and the university’s innovative entrepreneurship education program.

In his talk, Simon also debunked some common doubts about the education quality of joint venture universities in China as well as some concerns about the state of academic freedom on these campuses. He promised that despite the ‘financial sustainability’ challenges that Chinese joint venture universities currently face, Duke Kunshan University ‘is not going to be a degree factory.’

‘Moreover, so far we have not seen any intervention that attempts to limit our academic freedom. Our policy and practices on our own campus are very simple and straightforward.’ added Simon. ‘Duke Kunshan faculty and staff are respectful of Chinese laws and regulations while at the same time supporting open access to all channels of knowledge, news and information to enable our students to become informed global citizens.’

President Jie Zhang from Shanghai Jiaotong University and Rector Wei Zhao from University of Macau also shared their experiences of nurturing innovation through education reforms.

Rector Zhao viewed self-awareness and self-directed projects as the key to fostering innovation. ‘If you want your students to contribute to the community, the first thing to do is to make sure they know themselves,’ he said. Led by Zhao and his team, the University of Macau has launched various research internships, group activities and community service programs to encourage ‘learning by doing’ and ‘learning by living’.

President Zhang shared with the audience the challenges and achievements in the implementation of innovation-friendly system ‘ a top-ranked traditional Chinese university, Shanghai Jiaotong University overhauled its school policy to inspire curiosity-driven research, enhance collective innovation capacity and create a sustainable culture for innovation.

The Times Higher Education Asia Summit is part of the World Summit Series sponsored by the Times media organization. The
Times Higher Education World University Rankings, founded in 2004, provides the definitive list of the world’s best universities, evaluated across teaching, research, international outlook, reputation, etc..
THE‘s data are trusted by governments and universities and are a vital resource for students, helping them choose where to study. This year, Duke University was ranked No. 20 on the worldwide scale, while the National University of Singapore was ranked the No.1 university in Asia.

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Senior Editor/Writer

Gareth McPherson

Email: gareth.mcpherson@dukekunshan.edu.cn

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