Gong Ke, doctor of engineering, doctoral supervisor, foreign academician of Russian Academy of Astronautics.He served as the vice dean and vice president of the Graduate School of Tsinghua University. In July 2006, he was appointed as the president of Tianjin University. In 2011, he was appointed as the president of Nankai University. He resigned in 2018.

2018 Educational Figure - Gong Ke: The Choice of the Head of a School

Our reporter/Xu Tian—mdash;This article first appeared in the 882nd issue of China News Weekly

Reason for winning:

He is a university professor, principal, observer and reformer of Chinese education.Born in an educational family, he not only inherited the Nankai spirit of fairness, fairness and ability, but also devoted himself to exploring the foundation of Chinese education and the connotation of quality education.He believes that the essence of university reform is to de-administrate, and he spares no effort to call for the abolition of the administrative level of universities.He advocated ignoring subject rankings, emphasizing student development, and returning to the law of education itself.His thinking is based on education, but his influence goes far beyond the field of education itself.

When he resigned from the post of president of Nankai University, Gong Ke counted that he had worked in this school for 2555 days.Gong Ke did the same calculation nearly eight years ago when he left the post of president of Tianjin University, where he worked for 1,642 days.

On a rainy day, he came alone from Beijing to Tianjin, where he had little contact with his past life, and planted his own educational philosophy in the two most important universities in the city, making it take root.

Many people know him, not only because of his status as the principal of the two schools, but also because he dared to express his educational ideas and advocate reform.He once bluntly said that it is shameful to add a vice-ministerial rank after the principal, and he believed that colleges and universities should carry out de-administrative reforms.

At the beginning of 2018, Gong Ke resigned as the president of Nankai University.However, he has always practiced the Nankai school motto of fairness, fairness and ability, and is changing with each passing day. He has never stopped thinking about and appealing to education.

Three active choices

Gong Ke's academic career can be said to be closely related to the country's reform and opening up, and every step has been stepped on an important time point.

In the fourth grade of elementary school, the Cultural Revolution began, and Gong Ke, like all his classmates, suspended classes to start the revolution.In 1970, Gong Ke, who graduated from junior high school, entered the 798 Factory in Beijing—the place was later known as the 798 Art District.This is a military factory, and Gong Ke was assigned to a microwave workshop as a lathe worker.

Soon he felt powerless.He was an apprentice, and the master asked them to go to Wangfujing Bookstore to buy metal cutting manuals, but he found that he couldn't read them at all.The book involved the knowledge of geometry and dynamics, which he knew almost nothing about, and could not understand the relevant principles.In 1972, the factory re-established rules and regulations. In addition to political studies, young people invited college students before the Cultural Revolution to teach them mathematics and physics knowledge.Gong Ke also applied to be a worker, peasant and soldier student many times, but failed repeatedly.When he heard that the college entrance examination was going to be resumed in 1977, he signed up without hesitation, and he wanted to seize this opportunity.

He chose Beijing Institute of Technology (later Beijing Institute of Technology) because of its military background.In March 1978, Gong Ke, who was about to turn 23 years old, became the first batch of college students in the Department of Electronic Engineering of Beijing Institute of Technology after the Cultural Revolution.

In 1981, the Degree Regulations of the People's Republic of China came into effect, and a three-level degree system of undergraduate, master and doctoral degrees was established.Gong Ke saw a new learning path and decided to take the postgraduate exam.After the grades came out, the head of the school's postgraduate admissions talked to Gong Ke and told him that his grades were good, and now he had an opportunity to study abroad and he could let him go.

As a result, Gong Ke, who had excellent grades, became a graduate student sent abroad earlier after the reform and opening up.In 1983, he went to the Technical University of Graz in Austria to study for a Ph.D. in communication and radio waves.He obtained his degree ahead of schedule in four and a half years and decided to return to China.

There are many options before him. He can work as a researcher at the research institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as a civil servant in a state agency, or as a newly established satellite communication company.Each of these options has pros and cons.

China began to implement the postdoctoral system in 1985.For Gong Ke, being a postdoctoral fellow can postpone the choice of future path for two years.He learned that Tsinghua University has relatively sufficient research funds and active research activities.Therefore, Gong Ke entered the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University and became the third postdoctoral fellow in the department and the 11th postdoctoral fellow in Tsinghua University.

Many years later, Gong Ke recalled and summarized his first half of his life to China News Weekly, saying that he had only had three opportunities to actively choose over the years, all during the 12 years of studying after the Cultural Revolution.The first time is whether to take the university entrance examination, what school to take, and what major to apply for; the second time is whether to take the postgraduate entrance examination when the university is about to graduate.It is whether to return to China after graduation and where to go after returning to China.

In retrospect, he thought he was right to return home early.On the one hand, he entered and became familiar with the domestic research environment as early as possible; on the other hand, he opened up new research directions, leaving sufficient time for future development in China.

In 1990, 35-year-old Gong Ke stayed in the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University to work. The job number 90018 will accompany him for the next 16 years.

Adaptation is more important than ability

Gong Ke, who stayed at the school to teach, soon got more opportunities than others.Not long after becoming a lecturer, the person in charge of the department talked to him, hoping that he would become a student counselor.This is the tradition of Tsinghua University, which was initiated by President Jiang Nanxiang in 1953. Some senior students with strong political qualities and excellent professional skills serve as counselors for junior students. They shoulder ideological and political work and business studies on their shoulders.Pick the system for the shoulders.

Gong Ke declined this arrangement because he did not study at Tsinghua University during his undergraduate and postgraduate period and did not know the relevant situation, but became the party branch secretary of the teaching and research group.After working for two or three years, Gong Ke became the deputy director of the Department of Electronic Engineering. He wanted to take charge of scientific research, but the head of the department asked him to take care of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.He later realized that this was actually the training and inspection of him by the department, which was intended to make up for the part of his understanding of Tsinghua that he lacked.Afterwards, the school arranged for Gong Ke to take a temporary post in the graduate school as the deputy dean and director of the postgraduate training department.

He told China News Weekly that maybe his non-close relatives status, which is not in Tsinghua University, gave him more room for development in Tsinghua University.The school deliberately cultivates non-inbreeding, because such teachers will have no limitations and will not be easily involved in complicated personnel relationships.

Gong Ke was a little confused.When he was working in the Department of Electronic Engineering in his early years, he participated in the construction of the State Key Laboratory of Microwave and Digital Communication, starting from scratch, and gained a place in related research fields in China.It is not an easy decision to give up these, switch from scientific research-centered to management-centered, and enter the school leadership.However, due to the needs of work, he didn't have much room for thinking.In 1998, Gong Ke served as the director of the Science and Technology Department of the school.In 1999, at the age of 44, he was appointed as the vice president of Tsinghua University.At this time, it was only 12 years since he returned to China and entered Tsinghua University as a postdoctoral fellow.

A few years later, he once again encountered an opportunity to build a state key laboratory, which was somewhat close to his early scientific research aspirations.He became the first director of Tsinghua National Laboratory of Information Science and Technology (in preparation), one of the earliest national laboratories under construction in the country. Correspondingly, he devoted more energy to the construction of Tsinghua Information Science Group and related researchscientific research.But soon after, a new order came.

Gong Ke remembered that he had just returned home from a business trip in Taiwan when he received a call from the Secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University asking him to talk to the Ministry of Education the next morning, saying that there might be job transfers.He learned from the Ministry of Education that he was about to go to Tianjin UniversityAs a long-term post, the time is very tight, and you must be ready to take up the post at any time.Prior to this, Gong Ke’s life had never intersected with Tianjin, and he had only had occasional contact with Tianjin University before.

Before leaving Tsinghua University, Gong Ke was a cadre with two shoulders. He never gave up his scientific research work, and there were also doctoral students under his door.After arriving at Tianjin University in 2006, Gong Ke also recruited a Ph.D., but soon he found that, unlike when he was the vice president of Tsinghua University, now he was too busy to communicate with this Ph.D. student.In order not to delay the student, he had to be sent abroad for joint training.After that, he never dared to recruit students again.

Five years later, Gong Ke received a new transfer order to serve as the president of Nankai University just across the wall.This is a comprehensive university with a relatively complete range of disciplines. How to position and how to develop are new problems for Gong Ke.After becoming the president of Tianjin University, Gong Ke devoted himself to running the school, read a lot of books in the field of education, and made up for himself.Gradually, he put down all his research work and devoted himself to being the head of the school.If you do it, you must do it well. To shoulder this burden, you must work hard in the face of the school's century-old history, hundreds of thousands of alumni, and tens of thousands of students.Gong Ke said that this responsibility made him associate a certain stage of his life with a school.

He used his own experience to educate young people. There may be a few very lucky people who choose whatever major they like, that is, what they love, what they do, what they do, and what they do.But he is the opposite. He does one line, and then loves one line, drills one line, and refines one line.He believed Darwin's words that it was not the strongest or even the smartest species that survived, but the ones most adaptable to change.He thinks that the ability to adapt to needs is the most important. The ability to learn, the perseverance to endure difficulties, the pressure to withstand changes, and the interests cultivated after that are more solid things, just as he regards responsibility as hisDriven work life.

University's long and short considerations

When he really came to the position of principal, Gong Ke really realized that this burden is very different.The first thing he thinks about is how to construct the structure of school work.

At present, many domestic colleges and universities regard scientific research articles as the top priority. When ranking schools in various lists, scientific research articles account for a high proportion in direct and indirect ways.But Gong Ke believes that although the school should produce high-level academic papers, this is not the fundamental thing of the school.Because there are young people who want to be educated, society has institutions like schools.So I think the school serves the growth of students.The entire work pattern and the most fundamental things of the school should be student-centered.The several major functions of the school, including personnel training, scientific research, social services, international cooperation, and cultural inheritance, are not in parallel.The work of the school must take the healthy growth of students as the starting point and the foothold, and everything else must be carried out around this.

Gong Ke believes that this is the aspect that he has put the most effort into, that is, among the school leadership and the whole school's teaching staff, to establish the educating people-oriented school-running philosophy and build an educating people-oriented work pattern.

Related to this is the construction of university culture.Gong Ke believes that this is something that can have a long-term impact on a school and will not change due to the replacement of principals.The school motto of Nankai University is fairness, fairness and ability, and changing with each passing day.The school motto set by the former principal Zhang Boling in the 1930s has been continuously appearing in the public speeches of the new principal Gong Ke more than 80 years later.Whether it is the opening ceremony for new students in September or the graduation ceremony in June, Gong Ke constantly interprets the school motto, hoping that Nankai students will have the feeling of serving the world and be honest.Gong Ke said that it seems that this has nothing to do with school rankings and subject evaluation, but it will form the soft power of the school's long-term development.

In contrast, in order to improve the school's rankings in various rankings, Gong Ke introduced the policy that there must be a brave man under the reward.Harm the school's long-term.He put more energy on attracting and nurturing outstanding talents, promoting teaching reform, promoting interdisciplinary studies, strengthening the construction of academic style, improving management services and reforming the personnel system.

Similarly, in the just-concluded subject evaluation, although the proportion of A-type subjects in Nankai has increased, none of the subjects got A+.As the principal, Gong Ke is under a lot of pressure, and maybe doing some insurance abandonment integration will have better results.Nankai did not do this, Gong Ke said, because Nankai regarded it as a medical examination, and all the first-level disciplines that were going to run participated in the evaluation. Such results were objective and unobtrusive, and helped to find problems in the disciplines.For example, poor teaching indicators can further promote teaching reform.But the problem is that resource allocation, social donations, and student registration by leading agencies will all be affected by school rankings. This is a social reality that people have to bow their heads to.

As the principal, he has to bear the pressure from various aspects.In the past, as the vice president of Tsinghua University, assisting the president in charge of a certain aspect often required more resources for the work in charge.Becoming the head of a school, he becomes the one who decides to allocate limited resources. This is a matter that requires great determination and is not easy.

Talents need better human, financial and material conditions, discipline construction needs funds and space, school networks need to be continuously upgraded, school buildings need to be repaired, faculty salaries need to be improved, student subsidies should be increased, classrooms should be modernized, and scientific research must have better laboratories, international cooperation needs to expand its influence, and money is needed in all aspects, but resources are limited. Wherever the policy is tilted, it means the reduction of resources in other areas.During his 11 and a half years as the principal, Gong Ke has faced numerous decisions like this.

During his tenure as principal, he also faced the problem of building a new campus.At that time, although the old campus covered an area of about 2,000 mu, half of it was occupied by dormitories for faculty and staff. Excluding the area of the lake, the usable area for teaching and scientific research was only about 700 mu. For a university, there were some obstacles to its development.Tianjin City proposes to provide Nankai University with 3,700 mu of land for free in the Jinnan area, and the old campus will not be taken away.This piece of land, do you want it or not?

Building a new campus means investing a lot of construction funds, but schools that are in the peak period of a new round of national discipline construction need to concentrate on teaching, scientific research and talent team building, and funds are in short supply. However, while strengthening disciplines and building teams,, lack of space is another major constraint.Opinions are not uniform on this issue.

However, if you give up this opportunity, there may never be a second time.Seizing this opportunity will affect the current development speed of Nankai.Even, the construction of the new campus will inevitably consume the resources of the entire tenure of the principal. If it is not done well, the new campus may not be built well, and teaching and research will be greatly affected.After discussing with the party secretary, the two reached a consensus. Judging from the current term of office, it is of course very simple not to do this. It can avoid many troubles and reduce the pressure. But if we look at the next 30 or even 300 yearsLook, this is indeed a good opportunity, it is beneficial to the long-term development of the school, and it is a huge wealth that the school can have.

As the person in charge of the school, he should make a value judgment based on long-term benefits.In recent years, Gong Ke has worked very hard to grasp the reform and development of the school while building the new campus.The new campus has been in use for several years, and the subway and surrounding facilities have not been in place, which has created new problems.

As the principal, although Gong Ke has been preparing for artificial intelligence, network security and other disciplines, he did not add much to the disciplines as a whole. He did more subtractions. He abolished the School of Film and Television and the School of Agriculture at Tianjin University.In Nankai University, several disciplines such as military science were also cut off. The most difficult thing was to give up the discipline of education, which made Nankai no longer a school with a complete range of disciplines in the thirteen universities.

At the beginning of 2018, in his leaving speech, Gong Ke summed up the past years as the principal, saying that the progress of the school is not large enough, many tasks have not met expectations, many tasks have not been effectively promoted, and the gap has been widened in the fierce competition.Danger.I deeply feel that Nankai must reform and overcome difficulties in order to accelerate its development.He is quite strict with himself, thinking that he is conservative and seeking stability, and that drastic and sharp reforms are not enough.He believes that as the squad leader of the school leadership team, he must reflect on himself: I am not the kind of person who is particularly good at making decisions.People, I feel that I lack courage and courage, and maybe I am not suitable to be the leader.

But in fact, during the 2,555 days when Gong Ke was in charge of Nankai University, the new campus of the school has achieved a preliminary scale, reversed the trend of outflow of talents, promoted teaching reform, personnel reform and interdisciplinarity, and more importantly,Starting from the essence of education, he worked hard to explore an effective path to implement quality-oriented education with public energy characteristics, and it has achieved results.