> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • The Evolution of Race in Admissions
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
News
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

China: Attract Talent First, and Outstanding Universities Will Follow

By  Mara Hvistendahl
October 5, 2009
Andrew Chi-Chih Yao (right), director of the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science at China’s Tsinghua U., brings in scholars, like Ian Munro of Canada’s U. of Waterloo, to enhance a program increasingly known abroad.
Ricky Wong for The Chronicle
Andrew Chi-Chih Yao (right), director of the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science at China’s Tsinghua U., brings in scholars, like Ian Munro of Canada’s U. of Waterloo, to enhance a program increasingly known abroad.

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao’s trajectory suggests a genius’s quick ascent to success. Born in Shanghai, he studied hard, earned two Ph.D.'s from American universities, and at age 35 was a professor of computer science at Stanford University. By 2000, when he received the A.M. Turing Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in his field, younger computer scientists were memorizing a principle bearing his name.

But when Tsinghua University invited him to return to China to lead a new, generously financed institute in 2004, he jumped at the opportunity. “I was very excited,” he recalls.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao’s trajectory suggests a genius’s quick ascent to success. Born in Shanghai, he studied hard, earned two Ph.D.'s from American universities, and at age 35 was a professor of computer science at Stanford University. By 2000, when he received the A.M. Turing Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in his field, younger computer scientists were memorizing a principle bearing his name.

But when Tsinghua University invited him to return to China to lead a new, generously financed institute in 2004, he jumped at the opportunity. “I was very excited,” he recalls.

In creating the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Mr. Yao says, he had free rein from Tsinghua’s administrators to determine everything from research topics to personnel.

Once in Beijing, he threw himself into the project, emerging with an institute that is today one of the university’s jewels and is increasingly known outside China.

The way Mr. Yao’s institute was created illustrates a central element of China’s higher-education strategy. When the government decides it wants to do something, it does it, and fast.

ADVERTISEMENT

Theoretical computer science—the abstract, intensely mathematical subfield that is Mr. Yao’s specialty—is poorly financed in the United States. It wasn’t originally a target area for China, either. But China has an approach different from that found in the United States: a desire to build outstanding institutions by attracting the leaders in a field—any field.

Mr. Yao was first approached about joining Tsinghua’s faculty in 2003 by Chen Ning Yang, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who had himself recently begun lecturing at the university.

Through that and later discussions, Mr. Yao came to understand that the university’s officials were more interested in hiring world-class talent than they were in building up specific areas.

“They want to catch up in a global way, and therefore it doesn’t matter where they get started,” Mr. Yao explains.

That hunger translates into money for leading Western-trained scientists willing to relocate. “China is a very exciting place for science and engineering for people who have vision,” he says.

ADVERTISEMENT

‘Yao’s Class’

But while the chance to build a world-class institute from scratch required little consideration, how exactly to do it in a country with a developing higher-education system was a difficult question to answer.

Mr. Yao recruited his first class of graduate students, only to discover that many of them lacked basic skills. If he wanted quality applicants, he realized, he would have to train them himself. So he established an undergraduate program within the institute, selecting about 100 students each year and then identifying the most talented ones—a group now known as Yao’s Class—for intensive instruction.

The fact that he had the freedom to do so reflects another element of China’s higher-education strategy, in which a select number of elite universities are allowed to flourish.

“In the U.S., there are many things I would not be able to do,” Mr. Yao says. “If you tell Princeton University, ‘I would like to have an elite class of 20 students, and I will teach them in an accelerated way,’ you can’t do it.”

But even recruitment strategies had to be adapted to Chinese realities. After realizing he would have trouble enticing high-caliber professors from abroad, Mr. Yao decided the computer-science institute would instead have a large postdoctoral program. Promising young scholars are now recruited from the international market and encouraged to interact with Tsinghua graduate students in what Mr. Yao calls a “big-brother system.” This year, 11 fellows are serving as mentors for the institute’s 30 graduate students and 120 undergraduates.

ADVERTISEMENT

That solution is far from perfect. Fellows lack experience and typically do not stay in Beijing beyond the term of their fellowship, so Mr. Yao supplements the program with trips to meet leading scholars in Hong Kong, Australia, and Japan.

The trips abroad double as a reality check, important because Mr. Yao hopes to someday keep his homegrown talents on as professors. He wants his students “to make a decision rationally, and not because of their patriotism, to stay here for their graduate work,” he says. “I don’t want them thinking about greener pastures.”

In his field, however, China’s hunger to succeed means there aren’t any.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
International
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

  • America Falling: Longtime Dominance in Education Erodes
  • Asia Rising: Countries Funnel Billions Into Universities
  • Asian Universities on the Rise: a Comparison With U.S. Institutions
  • Scientific Research: Asian Countries Expand, U.S. Holds Steady
  • Singapore: Teaming Up With Foreign Universities for Innovation
  • South Korea: Supporting Research to Build Industries
  • Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin