The Study On The University Presidents Of Modern China

The university president is the administration representative director of a university, the university collective organizer, the legal person representative of university and the model to the teachers and the students, who is playing an extremely vital role in the university developing process. The Chinese modern university president refers to the administration representative director and the legal person representative of the national university (including public university), private university (including church university) and the independent college on the level of the undergraduate courses, which have been established and developed during more than half centuries at the end of 19th century up to 1949 before new China has been established. In more than half century developing process of Chinese modern university education, there are a batch of university presidents doing pioneer work despite great hardships, working wholeheartedly and racking their brains to make the indelible contribution for Chinese modern university, they and their famous laborious-managing universities become a lot of block milestones during the Chinese higher education history which have been admired and respected by the people until now. There are also many presidents who have worked hard as well, but have been faded away from the memory of people by the long river of the historical development gradually, even driven out by the teachers and students in their tenure. Selecting the community of the Chinese modern university president, doing generalized analysis and qualitative analysis based on the case research, the quantitative investigation, the classification research and the comparative research to summarize their successful experience of governing university, reconsider their failing lesson, announce the regulation that how they rule the university, hold the general characteristic of the community of the modern university president as well, which not only can provide the historical example for contemporary university education reform, but also can enrich the academic significance of Chinese modern education history and Chinese modern higher education history, it also can provide the history foundation for higher education and administration of higher education, and push forward the value of development of these disciplines.In the Chinese modern university educational development history, the role and the responsibility of the university president are definite through related education laws and regulations. The university presidents in late Qing dynasty are stipulated to command the entire scholar personnel; the north ocean government requests university presidents govern the whole business of the university; Nanjing government stipulates university presidents ruling school affairs synthetically, which reflects the request for university president's responsibility with time changing has slightly difference. The community of university presidents in modern age is expanding in the development of the university at that time. Until the end of 1948 the approximate quantity of presidents of modern national university, private university (including church university), national independence college and private independence college is 554, we can take the classified investigation to the length and the performance of their tenure, the way of being-appointed, the number of times of the appointment, the condition of the job-leaving, the attitude from the teachers and students on the time of accession and their knowledge and cultural background as well as the way of managing the universities. The dissertation emphasizes the analysis of model type president, mediocre type president, failure type president, despotic type president, indulgent type president, democratic type president, Chinese cultural predominant type president, western cultural predominant type president, and the mixture of Chinese and western culture type president.The modern national university presidents are generally appointed by government, meanwhile the private university presidents are generally appointed by board of directors, but a lot of teachers and students in university always express their strong claim that choose president by themselves and put forward the standards of their choice at the time of the appointment of modern university presidents. In modern age, no matter government or board of directors of private university dose not restrict the tenure and the age of the president, therefore it appears that some of the modern university presidents have long tenure, but some of them have short tenure. The modern university presidents mainly hold the post at the age of 35 to 50 which in their full vigor time of life. The dissertation reveals the relationship between the tenure, the accession' age and the achievement of modern university presidents, introduces the treatment and the job-leaving situation of them in the meantime, analyses the attitude of them when they face to the treatment and the job-leaving as well.The dissertation selects the excellent and famous presidents among the modern university presidents of whom were Yuanpei Cai, Menglin Jiang, Shi Hu from Peking University; Yiqi Mei from Tsinghua University; Shijie Wang, Xinggong wang, Gengsheng, Zhou from Wuhan University; Kezhen Zhu from Zhejiang University; Boling Zhang from Nankai University; Denghui Li from Fudan University; Wenqing Lin from Xiamen University; Yuguang Chen from Nanking University; Yuan Chen from Fu Jen Catholic University; Yifang Wu from Jinling Women's University and makes in-depth cases study of their school-running thoughts and school-managing strategies. Based on the above, the author concludes the features the famous presidents revealed during the process of how to run a university and running what kind of a university and think that their school-running characteristics embody in the following eight aspects: first, hold the university mission and promote the university spirit to run a university with magnificent and far-reaching lofty ideals; second, respect the rules of academic study and maintain the academic dignity to run a university with compatible lofty quality and freedom of thoughts; third, pay attention to the construction of regulations and system for management to run a university with ordered operation and legalization; fourth, emphasize professor autonomy and students' self-discipline to establish a university with great-hearted and democratic spirits; fifth, manage the process of cultivation to run a university with high quality; sixth, attach importance not only to fund-raising, but also to the fund-throttling to run a university with features of economy; seventh, centralize strength and accumulate predominance to run a university with own characteristics; eighth, manage the school development to run a university with clear targets, graceful environment and sterling school spirits.The dissertation analyzes and concludes the qualities of the famous university presidents in modern times from four aspects of ability, knowledge, temperament and moral character. It points out that the abilities to discern, analyze and forecast acutely, to make decision decisively and scientifically, to reform and innovate manfully, to defend and deal with school accidents and paroxysmal affairs and to be good at summarizing the experience of school- running and epurating school-running thoughts are the prominent features of the famous university presidents in modern times; that their temperaments are manifested by foresight, magnanimity, upright, frankness, pioneering, tenacity and strictness as well as kindness and that justness and selflessness, observance of law and regulations, esteem and faith, Workaholic, loyalty and humanity, responsibility and dedication, learning-addiction and teaching-tireless, setting oneself an example to others, modesty and prudence, concerning nation and caring people and incorruption are the outstanding features of the moral character of the modern famous university presidents. The qualities that the modern famous university presidents have are the intrinsic roots for them to convert as educationalists from presidents, while the external reasons are the new requirements for education by transformation of modern society, new mission to education by the national conjuncture, the new environment for the educational reform by the comparatively loose administration, the new energy for educational transformation by the revolutionary movement of thought and culture and the new reference for the educational development by the communication of Sino-western culture.The change of the modern university presidents' school-running, school-managing and their growing experience shows that shouldering the post of a president doesn't mean one can gain great achievement; being a president doesn't mean one is a successful president and can realize the transformation from a president to an educationalist. On the contrary, many presidents are third-class and even unsuccessful, becoming mediocrities and failures at last, which can provide inspirations for the presidents in the contemporary era to avoid mediocrity and failure and pursue success: firstly, have ideality, responsibility, patriotism and consecration; secondly, have temperament of magnanimity necessarily; thirdly, practice democratic management in school-managing; fourthly, have new measures and can open a new complexion during the first two year or so; fifthly, be compatible on Sino-western cultures on knowledge structure; sixthly, make research on 'school-running' as a specialty and the last, make an important place for the improvement of the ability to summarize the experience of school- running and epurate school-running thoughts.