New Year's Message from the President
With the New Year upon us, I would like to convey, on behalf of the university, my best wishes and sincere appreciation to all of our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and our respected friends and supporters from various fields. Thank you all for your extraordinary work and devotion that helped make 2013 such a productive year for our university.
Success came frequently to Tsinghua in 2013, as we continued to reform and focus on innovation in our efforts to enter the ranks of the world's leading universities. Reflecting upon our accomplishments over the past year, I want to share with you my pride in the firm and positive steps the university has taken on our ambitious path to the future. Among the noteworthy progress made in 2013, I want to highlight three key words: Reform, Innovation and Globalization.
Reform has deepened the modification of our personnel system in a thoughtful endeavor to build a modern human resources structure. The new structure aims to create a more positive environment where our faculty are respected and encouraged to innovate in both education and research. This reform will serve as a major driving force to stimulate the reforms in academic disciplines, team building and innovation.
Innovation is best seen in the university’s comprehensive academic development. We launched the x-lab as a new endeavor to explore innovative educational models. We launched the Tsinghua MBA+X program that aims to cultivate talent with an innovative spirit through the combination of management and other priority fields such as engineering, the arts and medicine. We also convened the 24th Education Review to explore innovative academic programs in a diverse context. Furthermore, Tsinghua reached a milestone in online education by joining edX and developing its own MOOCs: the TsinghuaX.
Globalization at Tsinghua in 2013 forged new ground as the university continues to promote its endeavors in international collaboration. This past year, we developed more opportunities for the international education of our students and worked towards improving the level of internationalization among our faculty members. This year also witnessed the launching of the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University. The program, which inspired congratulatory letters from Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama at its official launch ceremony, has drawn enormous attention from the global community. In addition, we initiated and implemented several other education programs, including the Doctoral Program for Studies in Developing Countries. For the second time, Tsinghua successfully hosted the World Peace Forum, making remarkable contributions to public diplomacy from an educational perspective.
The recently-concluded third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee carried great significance. It laid out the guiding principles for the further deepening of nationwide reform and development. As we move forward, we will continue to integrate Tsinghua’s development with the immediate and long-term strategic needs of our nation. We will work towards playing a more significant role in shaping the future of talent cultivation and scientific research. We will further advance institutional reform in order to establish a full-fledged university governance system featuring vitality and efficiency. We will continue to improve both the physical and academic atmosphere of the university to value commitment, critical thinking and moral spirit.
As we strive to reach even greater heights in the New Year, we will maintain our momentum and continue to shoulder our responsibility as one of China's leading universities. I am confident that 2014 will be another productive year for our university. Let us join hands in writing one more distinctive chapter for Tsinghua University in the great process of realizing the Chinese Dream.
Best wishes and Happy New Year.
