A Trip Report By Tang Xiaoou(859) Hi, Guys. I visited seven universities in Xian, Beijing, and Hefei, including Xian JiaoDa, Tsinghua, and USTC etc. During my stay at USTC 10th-13th, I gave two talks, and met teachers and students in Dept. 9 and 6. Deng Guohua organized my meeting with USTC general secretary Xi Fuyuen, President Tang Honggao, Head of personnel, Alumni office director, and several other officials. I represented both USTCAF and my department at CUHK (CUHK payed all my expense including air fare and the nice room in our beautiful new campus Wai Zuan Gong Yu). It's a very productive and cost effective trip. In this report, I will summary all the topics I discussed with USTC officials. They are mostly suggested by previous emails sent by GB members. 1. About anniversary USTC is publishing a news letter listing all the great things about our school. I have the first issue with me, and will try to scan it into my machine soon. They are organizing the second issue for mid of May. It will have the schedules and activities during the anniversary. We should send them what we have asap. Wu Jun mentioned we should publish an anniversary brochure. It's a good idea. But I think this kind of thing should be handled by professionals. The anniversary time frame is Sept. 20 - 22 or 19 -21 depending on the weather. USTC is interested in inviting accomplished scholars, and anyone interested in organizing workshops or symposiums, technical or nontechnical. It can be jointly organized with each individual department. Anyway, whatever we want to do, we should let them know asap to be put into the program in the second anniversary newsletter. 2. About visiting fellowship They are happy about the fellowship program. They will offer all the local expenses, and will pretty much accept any format we want. So someone please draft a concrete plan (I'd like to make a personal suggestion for this year. we should use the money to sponsor a workshop or symposium during the anniversary on a topic like "How oversea alumni can best contribute to USTC growth" or other technical topics. I had thought we are only spending the interests produced by the fund, so we will always grow. But apparently we are spending a lot more. Very unfortunately, after this trip, I feel very strongly that USTC is sliding down faster than any of us had originally thought. Huayi mentioned we should spend on awards more aggressively before something disgusting happens. It's already happening and accelerating! 3. About USTC call for donation USTC is calling for donation for the anniversary. Depending on the donation amount (>500 Yuan), the donor's name will be carved on a special anniversary monument. The money will be spent on several things: a student center in the west campus, a statue of Yan Jichi, a front door for west campus, a front door for east campus. Anhui University has a huge door opposite the gate of our west campus, USTC is determined to have a bigger one. Many parents complain that they can NOT find a good front door to take picture. The front door for west campus is already under construction. It will be beautiful (I hope). Right in front of our old east campus main Front Door (the one facing Yin Hang Gan Xiao), across the road, is a big new office building. On the wall of that building, there is a HUGE sign: Bei Da Fang Zheng. For those who do not know, BDFZ is a very hot high-tech company started by a Beida professor Wang Xuan. It has offices all over China, just like HuaWei or LianXiang. Maybe it's just a coincident. But I feel very bad looking at that sign. I wonder what the student parents think when they take pictures in front of that door. I personally suggested to USTC that we help them to call for donation under the same cause, but gave two donating addresses, one USTC, one USTCAF. The donor is free to choose where to send their money, based on their preference of scholarship or student center etc. They are very happy with the idea. I think we should use this opportunity as a campaign drive. Because all our money are used on USTC. It shouldn't matter much. I am happy to see they have such a nice collaboration attitude. 4. About Guo Moruo Prize The relatives of Guo Moruo had just contributed another 350,000 yuan on top of the 200,000 yuan already in the Guo Moruo fund. They would like to know how all the Guo Moruo prize recipients are doing now. As almost all of them are in the US, Deng ask us to help with it. I think we should use this opportunity to compile a brochure and let USTC use it as a powerful public image campaign item to China high school students. 5. About book drive: I talked with a couple of professors and the general secretary of USTC in charge of the anniversary and many other things. They all mentioned that the school is trying to have a major overhaul of the graduate courses. They are in desperate need of the most up to date information of course setup and text books. I suggested to him that we help to compile a stack of course bulletins from the top twenty major US schools, which will have all the course descriptions and textbook names. They are very happy with the idea. Also expanding on GB's original book drive, I suggest we select a small group of top US schools from the top twenty schools. And ask our alumni in those schools about the text books and reference books they use on each subject. We compile a list of book names for those subjects. USTC can pay most of the money to buy them. We can pay a small portion to buy some books and ask alumni to donate some more. This way we are really helping USTC in a concrete way to become a world class education institution. Another important thing related to the education overhaul is so called Zhong Dian Xue Ke (Key education subject). If a department is qualified as ZDXK, they will get millions of dollar education fund from the government. USTC have a relatively small number of ZDXK compare to other major schools (I don't know the exact number). Maybe this book drive can help them improve the status. 6. About magazine drive. When I mentioned GB's suggestion of magazine drive, President Tang is very happy about it. USTC can not afford many top journals because each costs thousands of dollars for a library subscription. For individual subscription a top IEEE transaction only costs $40. We maybe able to donate them as old book to USTC. But one thing they want to be sure is the continuation of a subscription. Maybe someone can lead a committee in charge of identifying two or three top technical magazines for each USTC departments. I just talked to some faculty here from Taiwan. They do this kind of thing in Taiwan too. It's legal to donate to library magazines more than a year old. It's illegal to donate current issue. It's a gray area in the middle. If a researcher can't even afford a journal, how can we expect him to publish on it. Publication number in China has become a dominate factor in assessing a school=D5s research performance. USTC has managed to hang in the top four for the past few years. 7. About prize for publication A few weeks ago, GB members mentioned to establish an award for USTC teacher who publish in top journals like Nature or Science. I saw a similar article in Nature (Nature, vol 389, Sept. 11, pp.113-117 "Western research assessment meets Asian cultures"). All Asian countries are doing this kind of things now. USTC has similar awards. Xi and Deng told me Nanjing Univ. has many policies in forcing more publication, including strict limit on publication numbers to graduate from Ph.D. program. That maybe why they can keep the number one spot in recent publication number rankings. USTC does not want to go that extreme. A USTC professor has ranked twice number one in China as top individual publishing researcher. 8. About awards for academician (Yuan Shi). >From what I know, becoming an academician in China is like becoming an instant millionaire in the US. Their income (more than ten times of a senior professor) and research fund are guaranteed. Every school knows the importance of having a few academician. Both the government and the school treat them very well. They don't need our encouragement as much. It's ok if some class want to do something. We should save our fund for more effective use. Maybe we can send an official letter electronically signed by a thousand oversea alumni to congratulate each of all the academicians in USTC (11 total now), let them know their students all over the world appreciate their achievement. That will make them very happy! 9. About USTC newspaper Per GB's request, I talked to USTC newspaper about sending us their publication and publishing our activities in the US. They are very supportive as usual. I think this can certainly be done through the above liaison approach. As a service to all AAs in the US, we can certainly offer updated USTC news on our webpage, and help other AAs and all alumni to contribute story to USTC newspaper. 10. About research politics in China USTC is kind of in trouble mostly because Academic Sinica is losing favor in the government. Many institutions have to be cut or in a better word self-funded. Since Zhu is from Tsinghua, Jiang is from Jiaoda, and many other top officials are from Fudan, ZheDa, and Southeast U., those schools are becoming ever more powerful. Beda's anniversary will be hold in Renmin Dahuitang, broadcasted to the whole country. Pretty soon, Beida will take over BeiYi, and Tsinghua will take over Beihang. Imagine that. Those schools are getting tongs of money. In many rankings, we already drop out of top ten. After seeing the equipments and student quality we have at USTC, I'm not complaining the ranking. Of course, policy in China never last. Sooner or later they will realize the importance of Academic Sinica and USTC, of course, if by the time, we are still hanging around. 12. About USTC student quality The undergraduate quality is sliding alarmingly. Some students get only 10 to 20 points in national English standard exam (CET 4&6). It's such a shame that one of our best subjects is dropping so low. In addition, USTC has to offer many ZiFei, and DaZuan student admissions to make money to run the school. They are dragging down the study environment on campus dramatically. USTC does not have a choice because only half of the operation money comes from the government. As for graduate, it's even worse. I mentioned before, good students come from HeGongda and Anda. Few good students out of Anhui want to come. Tsinghua has 50% of their students to graduate study without exam. When we trade BaoSong students with Tsinghua, in some departments, we need to use top five students to exchange their bottom students. A Guo Moruo student went to Tsinghua. He was discriminated greatly by their students. Of course, he left for the US now. Even their bottom students are very arrogant in USTC. These are the situations everyone in USTC knows. With the location in Hefei, and China's favor Beijing policy, they don't have much of a choice to do anything. I don't mean to pick a fight with any other schools. But in my mind, I have never given up the idea that we are the best. I hope those who have the same idea as me start to realize the reality in USTC and lend our hands to our school. 13. About spending We need to focus our fire power on the most emergency enemy on hand. I support book and magazine drive because it won't cost us much. Right now, our task should be focusing on improving undergraduate student quality, to help USTC hang in there. I suggests we focus on the following projects proposed by GB members: a. Someone lead the charge collecting school bulletin and text book. b. Someone lead the charge of organizing magazine subscription. c. Increase scholarship to a size that will make an immediate impact: HK$10,000 for Providence number one student. HK$5,000 for number two. HK$3,000 for number three. Using HK $ because it is still a hard currency, and it sounds a lot more. I think, this way, we can probably claim we offer the highest scholarship in China. We can publish this news in Anniversary newspaper. d. Someone organize a letter signing campaign for the academician and the professor who is the national champion in individual publications. e. Someone leads the organization of a symposium for the anniversary. USTC will offer the local expense. f. Someone establish an USTC information center on USTCAF homepage, offering all recent news about USTC. 14. A challenge fund: Want to hear a sick joke? I was told of this joke several times by USTC students teachers, and school officials: Don't call us Hefei Keda, just call us NanQi JiXiao (Nanqi technical school), then no one can lower us anymore. I'm not laughing. If we still indulge in discussing rules and formats, by the time we are done, that disgusting name may be a reality. Deng told me a USTC professor donated 10k yuan to the anniversary. I'm very touched by that. I would like to follow his lead, issue a challenge to oversea alumni. I will donate US$1000, and hopefully some alumni will join me with $1000 to form a challenge fund (Shangyou Zhang and Dongzi Liu have each pledged $1000). Then we use this fund to challenge all alumni to match it. I had always want to do this kind of challenge, but was afraid being labelled as trying to gain personal name. I hope more people will stand out, trying to gain a 'personal' name. I'm doing myself a favor, trying to relieve the burden of all those sad news from my heart just a little bit. 15. A fond memory of USTC Things look beautiful on campus. I feel very emotional walking there after eight years. USTC has more greens than any other campus I visited on this trip. The west campus looks absolutely gorgeous, even in the US standard (by this I mean the ugly MIT campus). Canteen 6 now houses all the private eateries that used to distribute along the campus road. The choice of food are amazingly abundant. What frustrates me is that they still use pig fat oil instead of bean oil. Most of us remember USTC has the most open policy in China for students to study aboard. Now they even list the number of undergraduate students went to the US (174 out of 805 this year) in the Zao Seng Jian Zang as a proud achievement. One of my agenda for this trip is to recruit students for my department in HK. Every school has different, stupid, unfriendly, polices for students going to HK. Because it requires public affair passport, the procedure is very complicated. Students have to stay as an employee of the school in order to be sent to HK. Most schools don't want to go through the trouble for their students. Some charge hk$40k and require students to sign a five year working contract with them. USTC has the best policy for students coming to HK. They invented this ingenious idea called Ming Yi Liu Xiao (fake employee). The students will stay as an employee without any benefits, and the school send him to HK and don't really expect him to come back, just like treating all her other children went to the US. It is so nice, so easy. I am touched. We have all used the name of USTC to gain so much (apply school, get a job). I still believe the name USTC has the best "good will" value in the US than any other Chinese Universities. This is mostly because we have the largest number of brightest students in American universities and companies, which in turn is because the USTC's open policy for the past two decades. I'm quite impressed by what President Tang Honggao told me: our alumni are still young, most of them are still students in the US. Ten years later, they will become a powerful force for their Alma mater. I think we all owe a great deal to our Alma mater. She needs our help NOW, not ten years later. 16. The good news Of course, there are good news about our school as well. We are still one of the greatest school around. Here are some samples for your enjoyment: 1). Five USTC professors become academicians this year, more than any other Universities and Institutions in China. 2). USTC formed a high-tech Institute with Academic Sinica (Hefei Fen Yuan). It is a very strong research force in China. 3). In 1996, USTC ranked 4th in SCI publication number in China. Prof. Fan Hong Yi is the individual number one in China. Prof. Li Jian Min is the seventh. Consider the small size of USTC, and the little investment from government, this is an amazing achievement. 4). Five high-school students got 3 gold 2 sliver metals in international high-school physics Olympic competition. USTC is in charge of the student selection and training. 5). LianXiang and USTC jointly form the LianXiang Computer Institute. 6). SGI, HuaWei all set joint labs with USTC. I think SGI donated something like 50 machines to Chemistry department (aren't too sure about the numbers). 7). USTC is the youngest among the major Chinese Universities! Don't give up on USTC. Look at UIUC, U. Wisconsin Madison, Carnegie-Melon, or John Hopkins. None of them are in great cities. They are all dominating just fine. Even Columbia is till well and alive today. You never know. Xiaoou Tang, 859 April 15th, 1998 (Revised, April 30th, 1998) Disclaimer: Most stuff mentioned in this report are from conversation with students and friends. You can consider them as "Dao Ting Tu Shuo". Information about USTC are collected only through a couple of days of my stay and I talked only to a very limited number of people in two departments. Students who have just come from USTC should know a lot more. Please offer more information. PS. USTC and USTCAF Joint Call for Donation in Celebration of 40th Anniversary of USTC: 1. Challenge fund: If you would like to joint us as a challenger to all the USTC alumni for a matching donation, you can pledge US$1000 or more to the challenge fund. We encourage those well established alumni to join this challenge fund. 2. Matching fund: We will periodically announce the challenge fund level and the challengers' names to all alumni in the world. Matching donations in any size from alumni are welcome. Matching fund level will also be updated in our homepage periodically. 3. Donation to USTC anniversary Person donated more than RMB 500 (to any of the four categories listed here) will have his/her name and donation amount carved on the anniversary memorial monument. 4. Regular donation to USTCAF If you are not interested in any of the above fund, please consider to donate to USTCAF through regular donation. To donate to any of the four categories, please write a check payable to USTC Alumni Foundation to the following address: USTC Alumni Foundation c/o D.Z. Liu 440 Daily Drive, Apt. 9 Camarillo, CA 93010 USA Please specify your email address and USTC class number on your check. (We would respect your privacy if you choose to be anonymous) For more information about USTCAF, check http://ustcaf.ustc.edu/ Please mark on your check which cause you would like to support: A. USTCAF and its USTC student scholarship; B. Anniversary fund, for building a student center, campus gates, and Yan Jichi statue. If you mark B, the fund will be transferred to USTC right away. Please also specify which of the above four category you want to be counted as. All donation will be counted as donation to USTCAF and the amount and donor's name will be permanently listed in USTCAF homepage (unless you specify not to). All donation will also be counted as anniversary donation, if your donation is more than RMB 500 or $60, your name will be carved on the anniversary monument (unless you specify not to).