It is definitely not an easy task for me to elaborate on what an ideal university looks like in my eyes, for I have been working at a Chinese university, and am shouldering major responsibilities in it.

In an ideal university in my eyes, education shouldn’t be understood just as a tool in itself. In the same manner, students shouldn’t be taken just as tools that would, hopefully, meet certain pre-determined expectations and objectives set by the educators (in the name of the nation even). It’s undoubtedly true that students should serve their nations and the society after they join the workforce upon graduation, and should play due roles and make due contributions to their respective families, it’s, however, still far from enough to understand education only from the perspective of a means or an instrument. University education should, first of all, allow, encourage and help students to grow to be real men in the genuine sense, stay true to themselves, and keep their own individuality and uniqueness. As a matter of fact, such opinion has been aired, in this way or another, with very similar meaning being conveyed, by sages at home and abroad in the human history. Two typical examples are what Confucius advocated and referred to as “learning for the sake of improving one’s own character” (quotation from the Analects of Confucius) and what Kant put as “you should treat a person as an end (instead of a means)”, or “humans are an end”. Therefore, we should view education from the perspective of human beings.

If we view education from the perspective of human beings, then education in universities shouldn’t be “teacher-centered”. Instead, if we all agree that students should, in the very first place, grow to be real men and be themselves, then students should become the “main body” for all educational activities, while teachers play the role of “supervisors and guides”. Yet, this would not in the least deny or reduce the significant roles of educators. On the contrary, this would demand more from them, because the task of supervising and guiding becomes tougher, if educators really want to help all students to grow to be themselves with unique characteristics. Therefore, education in a better sense should be “student-centered”.

“Student-centered education” should stay oriented to the hearts and souls of students. It would be far too simple if educators take their students merely as bulk products on the production line of education, as machines that would only accept knowledge passively, and ask them only to “learn what I teach”. Only if educators regard their students as a kind of divine existence and treat them with love and awe they hold for life can we say that they’ve successfully stayed oriented to the hearts and souls of students.

In order to achieve that, the fundamental elements lie in the guiding principles of university education. An ideal university in my view should aim at the “free development of students”. As Karl Marx put in the Communist Manifesto, “In there, the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” In fact, the innovative capability that people are highly concerned about is the outcome of free development. Without free development, the cultivation of so-called innovative capability is but empty talk. And, in order to achieve the free development of students, a broad sense of love in the university is in great demand. This kind of love should exist in the institutional systems of the university, in the services provided by the university, as well as in the minds and actions of teachers. Of course, what should be always kept in mind is that this kind of love shouldn’t go so far as to spoil the students and make them lose themselves. Instead, this kind of love should enable students to discover their best selves.

In an ideal university in my eyes, teachers themselves should be able to enjoy their own free development in order to make the free development of their students possible. Teachers shouldn’t worry about salary and earnings all the time; shouldn’t center their efforts upon certain index for ratings; shouldn’t always think about how to earn a few more credit-like stuff; shouldn’t appear to be humble and inferior in the presence of those who possess more so-called “resources”; don’t need to cheat others, and naturally, wouldn’t be deceived by others; and shouldn’t dream of becoming a “leader” in the future. Instead, teachers should focus more of their attention and efforts on their students, trying to figure out ways to teach according to students’ individual differences, achieving what was put by Confucius as “not explaining unless students are desperately anxious and determined to learn” (quotation from the Analects of Confucius), through which, students’ potential could be fully developed and best displayed. Also, teachers should be able to feel that they themselves could benefit from the teaching process as well. Teachers could conduct certain studies based on their own personal interest, while their liberal thoughts should always be respected. To make a long story short, teachers will probably need to be more refined, gentle, graceful and scholarly to achieve their own free development.

An ideal university in my eyes should have impressive characteristics featuring good morals, integrity and qualities, which I would like to refer to as “Ge” in Chinese language in this article. The “Ge” of a university, in my opinion, can be mainly embodied in the spirit of independence and freedom of expression. For one thing, the spirit of independence should be adhered to firmly. Only in this way could universities avoid the tragedy of doing anything for money, and even abandoning their guiding principles for the sake of economic benefits. Only in this way could universities be able to say no to authorities and influential officials. Only in this way could universities choose not to listen to and follow all “instructions”. Of course, it’s a fairly tough task to keep the spirit of independence in a noble way, for it takes a lot of persistence and determination. In reality, when material gains and fickleness erode universities and “being first-class” goes hand in hand with restlessness, it will be extraordinarily precious to stay cool and calm, and stick to the spirit of independence.

For one other thing, freedom of expression is also part of “Ge”. Actually, “seeking truth” can be viewed as the fundamental characteristics of all universities. And if universities could not even seek truth, the society as a whole could be only worse. In my view, a society cannot progress simply by resorting to “obedience”. Instead, it needs to grow continually along with inquiry. So an ideal university should enjoy the nice atmosphere of free expression, in which different thoughts can be debated upon and people are encouraged to have sufficient faith when facing thoughts that may have “discarded the classics and rebelled against orthodoxy”. An ideal university should also aim at training students to become individuals with critical questioning spirit. As a matter of fact, the Communist Party has long advocated the spirit of “seeking truth from facts”, but we are not enjoying such atmosphere featuring truthfulness due to bad habits formed through the years. At the same time, a majority of Chinese people have somewhat lost their courage to express thoughts freely. Therefore, an ideal university in my mind should boldly take the lead in changing such bad habits.

The “Ge” of an ideal university in my eyes should also be reflected in the moral and personality education of students. Students cultivated by an ideal university should not only have good professional knowledge, more importantly, they should have healthy and sound personality. Teachers should not only “teach the students knowledge that would help them to deal with different things”, but also “teach them good virtues” (quotation from the Book of Rites). “Virtue is knowledge”, that’s how Socrates, a world-renowned educationist, thinker and philosopher in ancient Greece, put it and it’s definitely right. It can be well imagined that, if all students of a university are equipped with real virtue knowledge, it would be almost unlikely to see brutal and barbarian behaviors on campus, let alone bloody incidents that are so scary as to make one’s hair stand on end.

In my mind, an ideal university should have two sides, with one being realistic, busy, hectic, quick-paced and down-to-earth and the other being idealistic, leisurely, carefree, slow-paced and up-to-sky. That is, on the one side, a large number of professors and graduate students devote themselves to serving huge needs of the nation and the society, who connect the campus with workshops and the vast land, searching for the unknowns and writing them down in their papers. On the other side, however, a certain number of teachers (maybe they are the minority) stay at their cozy and quiet corners of the world and do the things they truly love to do in a leisurely manner. In their eyes, university is just an ivory tower where profound thinking and new insights can be generated. And the university does not even need to ask what those thoughts and theories are for.

An ideal university in my mind should value its role as a leader, leading not only scientific and technological, as well as cultural advancement, but also social and political progress. A university should be a place in which new thoughts are produced rather than being merely spread and explained. An ideal university in my mind should allow space for scientific and ideological eccentrics to survive, for, they might not have good common sense, they might not be sociable, reasonable and understanding, yet they may probably lead the future!

Having said so much, I should ask myself: what have I done? What else can I possibly do in the future? (From “Guangming Daily”, by Li Peigen, May 16, 2013; translated by Liu Chang)