Chapter 70 third quarter

The success of Southwest Associated University lies not only in its integration of excellent teachers from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University, but also in its school-running philosophy and school system that conform to the spirit of the university. Before the merger and relocation, the three schools have formed their own fine traditions. Peking University is free and democratic, Tsinghua University is rigorous and serious, Nankai University is pioneering and lively. The realm of stepping. The highest management body of Southwest Associated University is the Standing Committee, which is composed of Jiang Menglin, President of Peking University, Mei Yiqi, President of Tsinghua University, and Zhang Boling, President of Nankai University. In addition, the University Council is set up as a deliberative body, and the Professors Association is set up as an advisory body.The school council is composed of members of the Standing Committee, the chief secretary, the provost, the dean of affairs, the dean, the dean, and professors equal to the above numbers; the professor council is composed of all professors and associate professors, and the professors who participate in the school council are elected by the professor council.

Since Jiang Menglin and Zhang Boling were often in Chongqing, Mei Yiqi actually presided over the administration of Southwest Associated University.The educator who put forward the famous school-running philosophy of "a university student is not called a building, but a master" said when he was in charge of the Southwest Associated University: "I follow the crowd and govern by doing nothing." The "public" refers to In fact, it is a professor. When this sentence is put into practice, it is the professor who people are calling for today to run the school. Southwest Associated University has five colleges of arts, science, engineering, law and business, and teachers, 26 departments, more than 350 teachers, and the number of students fluctuates around 3,000.She has only three offices: the Office of Academic Affairs, the Office of General Affairs, and the Office of Discipline. Today, there are no personnel offices, finance offices, infrastructure offices, scientific research offices, security offices, foreign affairs offices, veteran cadre offices, etc. in colleges and universities; In fact, Mei Yiqi is in charge of the Standing Committee alone, and there is no "leadership in charge" or "leadership team"; each college and department has only one dean and department head, who are concurrently held by professors, and there are no deputy posts.

Mei Yiqi advocates general education and opposes the school-running idea of ​​emphasizing practicality and ignoring arts and sciences; he believes that teaching students the so-called "one skill" is actually cultivating craftsmen, which is inconsistent with the purpose of the university. The system of Southwest Associated University is mainly based on the credit system, specifically the "elective course" system and the "common compulsory course" system.Students must complete more than 132 credits in four years (or five years), which is equivalent to 40 courses before they can graduate; the compulsory courses across liberal arts and sciences in the freshman year are generally eight (all departments of Chinese Literature and General History of China Compulsory), as many as 40 credits; if one-third of the credit courses fail, one will be repeated, and one-half of the credit courses will be ordered to withdraw from school.

In the past eight years, the United Nations University has offered more than 1,600 courses, like trickling milk, nurturing a generation of outstanding young people. With the careful teaching of famous teachers and scientific and reasonable training programs, young talents cherish the extremely rare and excellent conditions during the war. They work hard and grow up rapidly here. Wu Dayou, who was a professor of the Department of Physics at the United Nations University at the time, recalled Li Zhengdao, a student at the time and later a Nobel Prize winner: "He was eager to learn, and it was really strange. Sometimes I had rheumatism, and he beat my back for me. He Help me with any chores at home. No matter what difficult books and topics I give him, he finishes it quickly and asks for more. I let him do the steps of the problem, and it is easy to find that he is quick in thinking, big Unusual."

The spirit of Southwest Associated University, in addition to the "hard work" necessary for running a school during wartime, is "university independence".Senior executives and professors of UNU believe that the government's responsibility is to ensure the conditions for running schools and not to interfere in school administration. In 1939, Chen Lifu, the Minister of Education of the Nationalist Government, ordered Southwest Associated University to abide by the new regulations of the Ministry of Education three times.The United Nations University disagreed with this, and pushed Professor Feng Youlan, the dean of literature, to write a defense.The defense letter stated that the result of this approach is that "a university will be directly equal to a department of the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education", if everything is regulated by the Ministry of Education, then "professors are not as good as a member of the Department of Education in the minds of students" ; Moreover, if the internal affairs of the university and even the setting of courses are to be ordered by the Ministry of Education, "it will be affected by the advancement and retreat of the authorities in the Ministry, and the orders will be changed day and night. How can the research be carried out, the students' hearing and hearing, and their determination?"

At the end of the letter of defense, it said: "Our school inherits the traditions of Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University. All facilities are established. After many years of operation, even if we dare not say that it has achieved great results, it can be said that there are no flaws. It seems that there is no need to change it easily. ." The Southwest Associated University not only resisted the national government's interference in internal affairs, but also changed the compulsory "Three People's Principles" course for freshmen to several special topics in 1942, with no examinations and no credits.

In October 1940, the Ministry of Education promulgated the "Provisional Procedures for the Examination of the Qualifications of University and Independent College Teachers", which required a new "examination" of the "qualifications" of university teachers.This document aroused public indignation at the Southwest Associated University professor meeting, and all professors refused to fill out the "review" form, resulting in the deduction of academic allowances for the year. In order to strengthen the control over colleges and universities, the Kuomintang authorities stipulated that all deans must join the Kuomintang.When Professor Chen Xujing, the dean of the School of Law and Business of the United Nations University, heard the news, he sullenly blurted out: "Nonsense, I won't enter."

Under the full care of this group of intellectual elites full of free thought and independent consciousness, Southwest Associated University was not only a peaceful harbor in the flames of war, but also an oasis in the polluted society at the end of the Republic of China.