Scholarly and Determined: Knowledge Economy and Higher Education

Author: Yang Fujia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-08-01
Features: The fifty essays collected in Pursue Excellence with Diligence reflect Professor Yang Fujia's pursuit of excellence in recent years. They concentrate on his understanding of life, the world, his motherland, himself, and the future. This understanding possesses an attractive quality—unwavering belief and unpretentious ambition. Such belief and ambition should offer considerable inspiration to contemporary college students and educational administrators, as well as researchers in scientific institutions and government officials. Professor Yang Fujia's book Pursue Excellence with Diligence—Knowledge Economy and Higher Education is part of the Select Works from the Garden of Science series. This collection discusses the knowledge economy, higher education, and their relationship. Professor Yang Fujia is undoubtedly the most suitable author for this topic. As one of the first scholars sent by New China to Western countries, Professor Yang Fujia went to the Niels Bohr Laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1963 for research and work. After returning to China, he has consistently explored the forefront of nuclear physics, achieving remarkable results. In 1991, he was elected as a member of the Academic Division of Mathematics and Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In 1996, he co-authored Modern Atomic and Nuclear Physics (Fajia Yang & J.H. Hamilton) with J.H. Hamilton, which was published by McGraw-Hill in the United States. This book was the 16th in the series published by the publisher over 50 years and the first monograph by a Chinese scholar in this series. Meanwhile, since returning from Denmark in the mid-1960s, Professor Yang Fujia has never left the field of higher education. Since 1993, he has served as the president of Fudan University. His six years of performance, "pursuing excellence and striving for first-class," have nurtured a large number of outstanding talents for the country and expanded Fudan's international reputation. No wonder, after his departure, he immediately attracted international attention and was appointed as president by the renowned University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, becoming the first Chinese citizen to hold such a position at a prestigious British university. Therefore, whether from the perspective of his own growth experience, his long-term insights into higher education management, or from the viewpoint of comparative education between China and the world, Professor Yang Fujia is undoubtedly the best author to explain the topic of higher education in the era of the knowledge economy. The fifty essays collected in Pursue Excellence with Diligence reflect Professor Yang Fujia's pursuit of excellence in recent years. They concentrate on his understanding of life, the world, his motherland, himself, and the future. This understanding possesses an attractive quality—unwavering belief and unpretentious ambition. Such belief and ambition should offer considerable inspiration to contemporary college students and educational administrators, as well as researchers in scientific institutions and government officials.