Shenzhen university appoints educational reformer as president as it attempts to attract 8,000 students
Former deputy chief at Peking University to take up role at South University of Science and Technology
The South University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen has appointed a new president.
He is Professor Chen Shiyi, the former deputy president at Peking University, a statement on the university’s website said.
Chen, 59, was a post-doctoral fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States in the late 1980s and later joined Johns Hopkins University where he became the head of the mechanical engineering department in 2002.
He returned Beijing in 2005 to chair Peking University’s engineering faculty, also serving as the dean of the university’s graduate school in 2011.
He was promoted by the Ministry of Education as the vice president of the university in 2013.
Chen is seen as an educational reformer and he and 10 professors at Peking University wrote a joint letter in 2011 to the dean suggesting entrance to the college should be based on interviews as well as exam results, The Beijing News reported.