Oct. 26, the Duke Kunshan Distinguished Speaker Series featured Professor Yang Fujia, a world-famous scientist, educator and president of the University of Nottingham, Ningbo. Around 120 students, staff and faculty members from Duke Kunshan University as well as students and principals from local high schools gathered on campus to hear from Professor Yang about science, technology and universities.
Yang began his speech with reminiscences and fun anecdotes of his visits to Duke University and other higher education and research institutions in the United States back in the 80s’. ‘During my visit, I found that a weapons research lab in the U.S. employs researchers conducting basic research. Therefore, I made a suggestion that we should also emphasize basic research scientists’ role in military technology research as soon as I returned to China,’ said Yang, who is also the former president of Fudan University, and former chancellor of the University of Nottingham.
Yang then gave a brief introduction to the ‘two black clouds’ that obscured the “beauty and clearness” of physics in the 20th century – the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment in detecting aether providing one of the fundamental tests of special relativity theory, and the discovery of blackbody radiation that resolved the ultraviolet catastrophe and helped establish the foundation of quantum mechanics. ‘The 21st century physics is also obscured by another ‘dark cloud’, too ‘ the dark matter, and China is really catching up in dark matter research,’ he noted. ‘In 2015, China launched its first Dark Matter Particle Explorer satellite ‘Wukong’, which enables China to have a say on dark matter research.’
Professor Yang then shared his insights into the future direction of higher education in China. ‘Sixty percent of colleges in the United States are vocational colleges, and only 3% are research universities. In China, however, people tend to belittle the role of vocational colleges and worship research universities. Luckily, this mindset is changing.’ He also pointed out the importance of liberal arts education, ‘the best elite colleges around the world provide liberal arts education. Good liberal arts education is characterized by five principles ‘ the combination of science and humanity and arts; humans first, professionals second; small class sizes???extracurricular activities as part of liberal arts education; education of students as top priority. Duke Kunshan University should also build a nurturing learning environment around the principles of liberal arts education.’
Yang’s inspiring speech sparked many questions from both the students and the university faculty and staff. The event wrapped up nicely with an informative dialogue between Prof. Yang and the audience about the application of physics to healthcare, whether China should invest in large accelerator projects for fundamental research, and about the significance of liberal arts education.
