Dean of MIT Sloan School of Management David Schmittlein
On behalf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, congratulations, and best wishes, to Tsinghua University on this thirtieth anniversary of its School of Economics and Management.
The accomplishments of Tsinghua SEM during three decades have been extraordinarily impressive; even astounding. This is a credit to remarkable leadership at Tsinghua, and also a credit to the Chinese people, who have shown through Tsinghua SEM a great dedication to education, and to economic development.
Leaders from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, including especially Senior Associate Dean Alan While and Dean Lester Thurow, visited Tsinghua five years after its’ founding. They met with Dean Zhao Chunjun, who was an early and insightful innovator within the MBA movement in China. Dean Zhao provided great leadership for Tsinghua SEM, and MIT was fortunate to work with him in launching its work in China.
Furthermore, in those early years, former Premier and Dean Zhu Rongji was so important in encouraging and leading the development of Tsinghua SEM. He had a vision for Tsinghua, and for China, bringing leading Chinese scholars and students closer to global best practices in management, and ultimately, bringing China to a leadership position among the world’s economies with respect to those best practices themselves.
We at MIT recall with great joy the visit of Premier Zhu to our campus in 1999. Premier Zhu addressed the MIT community with a speech, whose words of thoughtful encouragement delivered fifteen years ago this month, continue to echo at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The continued engagement of Premier Zhu, and the continuing power of his vision, has certainly benefited Tsinghua University broadly, but more specifically I can attest that Premier Zhu has had a very great effect in creating and developing a close partnership between Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management and the MIT Sloan School of Management.
This close partnership was, in its inception, also completely dependent on the strong support of Marjorie Yang and her father, who were the founding sponsors of the collaboration between Tsinghua and MIT. They saw this time period, in the 1990’s, as a pivotal moment in China’s economic development, and in China’s development in education, and in its relationship with the United States. We at MIT will never forget the leadership of our alumna, Marjorie Yang, in helping MIT come to China, and in helping Tsinghua forge a strong bond with MIT.
The collaboration between MIT and Tsinghua has been important. Over the past 18 years, 72 faculty from Tsinghua SEM have been part of our International Faculty Fellows program, which provides them access to the teaching and research underway at MIT Sloan.
We are proud of the 1,500 graduates of Tsinghua’s International MBA program have benefited from direct engagement with MIT faculty and course materials, and have engaged with both Tsinghua and with MIT as influential, successful, thoughtful alumni. It is our honor to include these leaders in our alumni community.
The collaboration between MIT and Tsinghua has also supported our goal to learn more about China, and about its economic development. Since our collaboration began, MIT Sloan School faculty have made more than 150 visits to Tsinghua SEM. Two of our MIT Sloan PhD graduates are members of the Tsinghua SEM faculty. Since 2008, 27 teams—nearly 90 MIT Sloan students— have come to China to learn and study in this extraordinary economy and society.
In recent years, and during my time as Dean of the MIT Sloan School, we at MIT have been so very fortunate to work with Dean Yingyi Qian. Dean Qian has brought a superb intellect, a strong sense of the importance of Tsinghua for China, a collaborative attitude, and an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit, to the opportunities and challenges presented to Tsinghua SEM. The Tsinghua community owes him a great gratitude for his leadership. He has also brought a deep commitment to the collaboration between Tsinghua and MIT, and for this we at MIT will be forever grateful, and hold him in the highest respect.
Dean Qian began his leadership position at Tsinghua SEM in 2006, and I began as Dean of the MIT Sloan School in 2007. In the years since, our work together has led to important new initiatives and an upgrade in the relationship between Tsinghua and MIT. We have together launched a new collaborative Global MBA program at Tsinghua. Our new MIT Sloan China Lab course has been developed in close collaboration with Tsinghua faculty, staff and students. This year, our MIT Sloan Professor Scott Stern introduced his entrepreneurship course to Tsinghua students. And through the last seven years I have been a proud and consistent participant in the Tsinghua SEM’s annual Advisory Board meetings here in Beijing.
Going forward, we look to a continued close collaboration between Tsinghua and MIT. We will continue our cooperation among students and faculty, and engage in some new activities. We will pursue new research opportunities together, and we will work together to convene thought leaders in China around economic and management topics of great importance. And, in collaboration, we will explore, and experiment with, new kinds of ways to have impact, in China, and on China-U.S. relationships, and on China’s continuing growth as a leader in the world.
Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management, please be proud of your extraordinary achievements in management education and in economic development. Your many friends at MIT, including me, are honored to stand with you today in celebration, and hope to continue as partners in your bright future.
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