Standing Between The Politics And Academia

In the Republic of China (1911-1949), though Chinese principals of the national universities accepted the thought of independence of universities early in the transition from traditional education to modem education, they were at the juncture of the national power system, university autonomy and academic freedom system, so they could neither depart from the government, nor rely on it too much. The principals were the operators of universities, the maintainers and advocators of the academic freedom as well as the explorers of the relationship between the university and the government.In the ROC, the external environment of the university was harsh. Due to the harmful economic, politic and other factors, there often appeared university student strikes behind which the politics, parties, nations, society and many other "catabolic" forces exerted influences that led to the condition that academic and teaching activities in university were hard to implement. In this case, it was a difficult question for the university principal to appropriately solve the problem of student strike.This present study, taking Dr. Zhu Kezhen, the National principal of Zhejiang University in the period of ROC, and his politic stand, attitude and academic sense as the example, explores the fact that on the one hand, the Chinese principals of national universities in ROC period, as the representative of the intellectual, took part in the politic movement and always stood at the forefront of the patriotic movement due to their patriotic thoughts; on the other hand, they pursued the educational freedom, insisted on the educational independence and university autonomy, and tried to make the universities out of the intervention from all politic factors.The first part of the text principally described a series of reforms that Dr. Zhu Kezhen executed after he became the principal of Zhejiang National University during the so-called Qugun Movement which meant to banish the former principal whose name was Guo Ren yuan, the contents of the reforms, including upgrading the administration of the university, recruiting staff despite their personalities, rebuilding the academic environment and paying attention to the moral education, demonstrated Dr. Zhu Kezhen’s spirit as an educationist who determined to remove the politic disturbance and protect the dignities of academia and education. The second part of the text explained Dr. Zhu’patriotism. During the so-called Daokong Movement which meant to fight against Kong Xiangxi, a politician at that time, he only emphasized on the truth but not the interest, besides, he advocated the freedom of thoughts and encouraged students to take part in the patriotic movements, showing Dr. Zhu Kezhen’s spirit as an modern China’s scholar who always considered about the existence of the nation while engaging his career. The third part illustrates Dr. Zhu’s standpoint and attitude of liberalism as well as his educational thought of academic freedom, along with Zhu’s gradually changed attitude on the administration of ROC. The fourth described the Yuzisan Movement, which was the last student movement that Dr. Zhu handled during his tenure. During this movement, Dr. Zhu persisted in "seeking truth from facts", spoking the truth, as well as the educational concept of supporting the student autonomy and placing the academic in first, which made him hard between the Kuomintang(KMT) authority and the student strike. As a result, he decided to resign the post of the principal, staying away from politics and focusing on the academia. The last part of this paper attempts to analyze the confliction between China’s university principals’academic responsibility and their social responsibility as well as their embarrassment while handling problems from the government and from the school, indicating that the university principal of ROC had to balance their academic responsibility and social responsibility with education salvation and academic salvation.