A Study On Dr. Chang Poling's Ideas And Practices Of Operating Nankai University

With the popularization and internationalization of higher education, China's higher education has to compete with the foreign countries' higher education in the worldwide higher educational market. So China's private universities also have to meet the challengement. China's higher education, which is in the down-hand in the worldwide higher educational market, especially the private universities face a hard situation. So in this thesis, the author tries to conclude Chang Poling's ideas of operating Nankai University which proved to be successful by studying his practices of operating Nankai University from 1919 to 1949. And hope these ideas are helpful to the present private universities in coming out from the hard situation and making their developments.This thesis mainly focuses on the experiences Chang Poling made in operating Nankai University successfully.First, the secret of Chang Poling's success should owe to his idea of a private but not-privately-owned university in management. There's a board of Directors in Nankai University, but not clear relations between the ownership and the management of the University. Neither the initial investors nor the following donors, nor the users like Chang Poling are the owners of Nankai's property. What they got is not profits repay, but the continuously increase of Nankai's fixed assets and the booming development of Nankai's teaching career. In nearly 20 years' development before the Anti-Japanese War, Chang Poling made Nankai's asset increased to about 3,000,000 Yuan. It was an astonishing miracle at that time. This should be attributed to his operating idea of "private but not-privately owned "university in management, so that it guaranteed the outlay which made Nankai University run in its way smoothly.Second, the secret of Chang Poling's success also should owe to his idea of establishing a doctrine for the school which was observed by the teachers and students, the ideas of building up a harmonious, struggling humanity environment, and the ideas of setting up a comfortable,peaceful campus. The highest ambit of operating school is to change the president's operating ideas into all the faculty's teaching ideas, even into the students' learning ideas so that all the faculty and all the students will strive for the common ideal. Chang Poling is such a president who operated Nankai University according to China's fact, summarized more mature educational purposes, brought up a doctrine and made them to be the common ideas that all the faculty and students scaled their works by and strived for.Third, the secret of Chang Poling's success also should owe to the ideas of localization in educating the students. He advocated that training students should be localized and establishing course system should be based on the need of the society. He paid much more attention to students' all- round development in moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic education. Because of his all-round training ideas, most of the graduates from Nankai University were high-qualified persons with moral integrity and professional competence, so they were welcomed by their employers and parents. As a result at that time Nankai University had been very famous for its good teaching quality and attracted many students far away from Tianjin. That is "Nankai brand" effect. Brand can make huge value and is constituted in the popularity, prestige in the public. The school brand can bring huge economic performance and social performance to the school. The corpus content of school brand is the image and prestige of the school and its graduates. The effect of operating school is not the sum but the matrix effect of the managements in all sides of the school. So we should pay much more attention to school brand effect.Fourth, the secret of Chang Poling's success also should owe to the idea of employing and managing the faculty. An enterprise is a productive regiment, so a successful enterprise must be based on a well-disciplined and well-trained employees' group. So a successful school also must be based on a well-disciplined and well-trained faculties' group. Chang Poling was good at knowing the faculties' subordinates and assigning them jobs commensurate with their abilities. This is one of the reasons for his success. Appointing teachers for Nankai University is a hard job. Chang Poling appointed the teachers strictly. Firstly he would examine the moral qualities of the one who applied to teach in Nankai University; secondly, he would select the one who was excellent in scholarship according to the need of Nankai University. He thought a qualified university lies in the instructors who are good at teaching and have the sprit of contribution to teaching. He attracted many such teachers and experts with his own enthusiasm on education. And most of the teachers and experts in Nankai University were outstanding at that time, even nowadays. They firmly believed in their careers and ideals and made their contributions to Nankai University.Fifth, the secret of Chang Poling's success also should owe to the idea of orientation for Nankai University. Every spray exists for certain reason, so we needn't to imitate others. If we want to operate a university well, we should find out the advantages of our university, orientate our university correctly and make it special to others.Chang Poling made a great contribution to our county's private higher education and cultivated many intellectuals. Especially his abundant ideas of operating university are good reference to today's university in proper orientation, establishing operation ideas, setting up campus culture, strengthening faculty group, raising money etc.It's great to build a private school in the period of war. Chang Poling built a huge educational system successfully. Introspecting today's private universities, Chang Poling's ideas and practices of operating Nankai University give us the following inspiration: the qualification of a principle of a private university in management; fostering the idea of private but not privately-owned university; the idea of raising money for the development of the university; and the idea of making the poor students educated.