On December28, 2012 a signing ceremony took place in Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management (SEM) to launch the program of “Merge between Tsinghua University SEM and Management and Disciplines of Engineering, Aesthetics and Medicine – the MBA+X Dual Degree”.

  

Tsinghua SEM Signs Cooperation Accord with Department of Engineering Physics, Academy of Art & Design and School of Medicine

In the presence of distinguished guests including Tsinghua University President Chen Jining, School of Graduate Studies’ Deputy Dean He Kebin, Tsinghua SEM’s Dean Qian Yingyi signed the cooperation agreement with Department of Engineering Physics’ Dean Chen Huaibi, Academy of Art & Design’s Dean Lu Xiaobo and School of Medicine’s Deputy Dean Shi Yigong. The signing ceremony was chaired by Tsinghua SEM’s Associate Dean Li Jinliang. Participants of the event also included journalists from more than 20 media organizations including Xinhua News Agency, China News Agency, China Daily, China Education Television, The Beijing News, iFeng.com, China.com.cn, Sina.com.cn, Tencent.com, etc.

   

President Chen Jining Witnessed Signing and Took Photos with the Deans

Tsininghua University Chen Jining remarked in his keynote speech: “Tsinghua University, particularly the engineering schools, lacks innovative and entrepreneurial talents. The MBA+X Dual Degree program is not simply teaching the engineering students the bits of MBA knowledge, nor the basics in design or medicine, but is crafted to instill the innovative and enterprising entrepreneurship and philosophy – to educate them with a different way of thinking and the drive to challenge. We pin great hope on this program and wish more people will join us to put it into real practice.”

  

Dean Qian Made a Speech

Tsinghua SEM’s Dean Qian Yingyi commented in his speech: “SEM signed the agreement with three other sister colleges to initially join forces in launching the MBA+X Dual Degree program which is a new experiment in degree education by integrating management with engineering,  aesthetics and medicine. We hope this platform will combine the educational and practical resources together with innovative methods drawn from the four colleges to achieve enhanced synergy. We believe the MBA+X Dual Degree program will create new ways of educating interdisciplinary management talents, fitting with Tsinghua’s strategic needs of educating new century talents. In recent years, SEM takes integration with the university as a strategy towards educational innovation, and included such a philosophy in its newly drafted the school’s three year strategic plans for 2013-2015. The plans listed the launch of MBA+X Dual Degree as one of the two important projects in its “integration-with-university” strategy.  

The Department of Engineering Physics (DEP)’ Dean Chen Huaibi remarked: “The nation and the society now place extreme importance on public security. Nuclear studies remains as DEP’s traditional discipline with an advantageous edge, and the security science and technology is the new discipline direction that we are building forces on, putting us at a pioneering and leadership position in such field in China. We will grasp this opportunity to fully leverage the advantages associated with the discipline, explore new models of educating and jointly nurture a new generation of interdisciplinary management talents equipped with specialized knowledge of engineering technology in the nuclear and security fields. I expect this cooperation to be able to push the integration of management science and engineering, paving the way for a new model of education practice to develop interdisciplinary management talents in nuclear security and meet the demands for high-level human resources.”

The Academy of Art & Design’s Dean Lu Xiaobo said: “It has been widely acknowledged that innovation accelerates development modes. Interdisciplinary integration is an important way of using innovation to stay ahead of the future. The Academy of Art & Design has a few disciplines, including design in particular, that constantly ranked among the top candidates in the nation’s discipline evaluation program. The country is in a transitory state and based on the project launched today we will be able to initiate strategic cooperation between cultural management, art management, design management and SEM as well as the School of Public Policy and Management. The Academy of Art & Design has always had strong wishes to push ahead with such a cooperation in order to bring the discipline to a new level and introduce enormous forces to drive the growth of the academy’s disciplines.”

The School of Medicine’s Deputy Dean Shi Yigong commented: “The School of Medicine has achieved substantial progress in the five first-class disciplines including life engineering, basic medical sciences, pharmacy, public health and clinical medicine through the joint efforts made by the school over the past five years. We have been seeking opportunities to step out and increase interaction with the university’s other disciplines. The MBA+X Dual Degree program is a great opportunity as we can leverage the School of Medicine’s characteristic being an international platform to not merely launch the MBA+X Dual Degree program, but also initiate the program’s international class. I hope all the colleagues at the School of Medicine will work together with SEM to make MBA plus public health, basic medical sciences, pharmacy, clinical medicine and the international class a success.”

  

Guests present at the signing ceremony delivered speeches

In response to journalists’ questions, the School of Graduate Studies’ Deputy Dean He Kebin pointed out: “The colleges that signed the agreement today represented the top-notch capacity in their respective field, cooperation among the leaders. From the demand perspective, the needs of management talents in the fields of medicine, engineering and art remain robust. MBA education puts a great emphasis on case studies, and we hope this cooperation will model a new case in talent education through which an increasing number of interdisciplinary management talents will be developed for the country. The new case will also realize integration among more disciplines going forward and evolve as a new system and model to enhance the education quality in the future.”

It is learnt that Tsinghua University plans to enroll some of the graduate students from the Department of Engineering Physics, the Academy of Art & Design and the School of Medicine in the 2013 spring promotion for the MBA+X program. That will be the first phase of the MBA+X program initiation and the program will be open to more colleges in the future.

Along with the deepening globalization and accelerated technology innovation, the society will be in need of more interdisciplinary talents proficient in both specialty knowledge and management science. The integration among different disciplinary knowledge and skills enables Tsinghua students to unleash their talents in an increasingly liberal environment, empowering them with additional creativity, competiveness and leadership. Educating interdisciplinary talents that understands management sciences requires new education models. Tsinghua University is a university with educational programs spanning a wide range of disciplines, thus possessing a  congenital advantage in disciplinary integration and educating interdisciplinary talents. Launching the MBA Dual Degree program will fully leverage Tsinghua’s advantage in disciplinary setup, student quality and geological location, forming a new model of educating innovative and interdisciplinary talents. That will not only benefit the students, but also heralds a new breakthrough in the country’s post-graduate education contributed by Tsinghua, implying great exemplary significance.

As one of the first-batch MBA schools approved by the Ministry of Education, the Tsinghua MBA program is one of the mainstream MBA programs with the most influential brand. The Tsinghua MBA has enrolled 21 promotions, granting more than 8,000 MBA degrees. Upholding the philosophy of “China Roots Global Vision”, the Tsinghua MBA program progressed with the time and kept innovating. Its education system covers both the curriculum and extra-curriculum fields that are consistently renewed and enriched. The MBA students are able to learn the systematic management knowledge through the tailored courses, and also have the opportunity to sharpen their soft skills, broaden the vision and extend the people networks through the extra-curriculum projects including internships, company visits, case competition, business ethics debate, alumni coaching and overseas learning by seeing, etc.

It has been five years since the Tsinghua MBA initiated its educational reforms in the summer of 2007 when it led the introduction of new MBA course system that focused on “educating the future leaders with all-round management capacity” and constructed a new MBA education model by targeting “soft skills”, “integration” and “experience”. Tsinghua launched the MBA enrolment reforms in the spring of 2010, and established a new recruitment model based on “assessment of overall qualifications and conditional enrollment with early interviews.” Both reforms greatly improved the course design and student quality of the Tsinghua MBA program. Next year, Tsinghua SEM will strengthen cooperation with other Tsinghua colleges and make the MBA+X Dual Degree program a success, contributing new efforts to China’s MBA education reforms.