On 16 November 2012, the University of Macau (UM) conferred honorary doctorates upon Prof. Arden Lee Bement, Jr., Dr. Ambrose So Shu Fai and Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, in recognition of their outstanding contributions in research, culture and education. The ceremony was presided by Dr Chui Sai On, Chief Executive of Macao SAR and chancellor of UM. In his speech on behalf of the other honorary degree recipients, Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao said, “Through over thirty years of development, UM has attained impressive achievements in teaching, research and community service, and is now working towards the goal of becoming a world-class university.”Of the four recipients, Prof. Yao deserves special mention because his ties with Macao dated back nearly forty years when he studied under Prof. David Chung-Laung Liu, a world-renowned computer scientist who received his early education in Macao and who watched with pride as his former student received the honorary degree. A close encounter at UM with two eminent computer scientists was an interview opportunity too good to be missed. So the editorial team of invited the two masters for an interview, to which they generously agreed. To our pleasant surprise, Prof. Yao’s wife Frances Yao, who was also at the ceremony, joined our interview. An accomplished scholar in her own right, Frances is a chair professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. It was Frances who suggested to Prof. Yao forty years ago that he should switch from physics to computer science, a relatively new field at the time. And our interview began with Prof. Yao recalling how that suggestion led him to become a student of Prof. Liu, who would later have a profound influence on his life.
L: David Chung-Laung Liu Y: Andrew Chi-Chih Yao F: Frances Yao J: Journalist
Liu: “The ‘Yao Class’ is as important as the ‘Qian Class’ ”
Y: I studied under Prof. Liu from 1973 to 1975 at the University of Illinois. I was very fortunate to have such a good role model as Prof. Liu at a young age. He is a well-versed scholar and he knows how to educate students according to their strengths. For example, for students who didn’t have a lot of systematic ideas but were diligent and had a solid grasp of the fundamentals and theories, he would assign some tasks that suited their strengths; for those who had original ideas, he would give them a lot of freedom and would encourage them to think independently. That’s why his students have achieved success in different ways. He saw the strengths in every student and helped them achieve maximum potential. This has had a huge influence on me, especially for my teaching at Tsinghua University in recent years.
L: Prof. Yao received his PhD degree in physics from Harvard University, under the supervision of Sheldon Lee Glashow, a Nobel Prize laureate. Over the past two days Prof. Yao gave a lecture on quantum computing, which was related to this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, and which has the potential to make possible what’s otherwise impossible. I may have started a little bit earlier than Prof. Yao, but in the journey of scholarship we are not so much teacher and student as travel companions who learn from each other and cheer each other on. What I find most admirable about Prof. Yao is his decision to return to China to teach at Tsinghua University eight years ago. This is a common wish of many people, but what sets Prof. Yao apart is the fact that he devotes himself to it with all his heart. Prof. Yao joined Tsinghua University with the intention of launching postgraduate programmes, but he soon realised he had to start with undergraduate courses, and so he did. Students he taught at Tsinghua University over the years have established themselves, with many papers published at major international conferences. Now Prof. Yao’s students are welcomed by top universities like MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, etc. His students are sought-after by top universities and the world’s best postgraduates are willing to go to Beijing to work for him—I think that’s quite something! That’s why I think the “Yao Class” is as important as the “Qian Class”. (editor’s note: “Qian” refers to Qian Xuesen.)
Y: I’d like to talk a little bit about my early days at Tsinghua University. At first I was hoping to quickly set up a research team to focus on the theoretical aspect of computer science, because it is internationally recognised to be important—for example, 20 per cent of the Turing Award-winning projects are related to theory; but it is an area China has long neglected. (J: do you think this has to do with China’s education system?) I think it has to do with China’s priority in scientific research. For a long time China has focused on practicality; in other words, it wants to see immediate results. Computer science in China tends to focus on the engineering aspect, with little attention to scientific foundation. So I was really hoping it the awareness of the importance of the theory could take root at Tsinghua, but I also felt this should start with undergraduate education. So we conducted a second undergraduate recruitment. During the freshmen check-in week, we selected thirty students through exams for the Yao Class, which is similar to the Honours College at UM. We have since graduated four classes. I am very positive that we should see results pretty soon. I believe what Prof. Liu and I are doing, especially educating Chinese students, goes a long way towards raising computer science in China to a higher level.
Another thing I did when I first joined Tsinghua was to organise many conferences to give students opportunities for international exchange. We devoted a lot of resources, and our purpose was two-fold: broadening students’ horizons and building a brand internationally. Because once we have built a brand and make people realise our students are truly outstanding, they would be happy to accept our students for further studies after their graduation. Now it’s been about seven years since we launched the project, and I’m glad to say that we have successfully built a brand—universities in the US that excel in computer science now all know our (Yao) Class. So I know we did the right thing.
Yao: “University education should help young people answer two questions.”
J: What do you think is the intrinsic mission of education? What’s your idea of a good education system?
Y: I think the most important mission of university education, especially undergraduate education, is to help young people answer two questions. The first is, “What am I really interested in?” The second is, “What do I excel at?” Of course it would be even better to provide a platform for students to achieve their maximum potential. But basically I think helping young people find answers to the two questions is the most important thing any university could do, because whether a country can have an advantage over other countries depends on whether its people can achieve their maximum potential. As with many other things, this is easier said than done, and it is the greatest challenge for any university that aims for excellence. We can’t just mechanically copy the practices of US universities because the circumstances are different. The best universities in the US have many top professors and scholars. These professors don’t have to go out of their way to educate the students; they just need to do their job. Even so their students still stand a better chance of discovering their interests than their Chinese counterparts because they have sufficient freedom to access different courses and interact with all these excellent teachers. But this approach simply wouldn’t work in China or other parts of Asia, because we just can’t hold a candle to Harvard in terms of faculty strength, not even with all professors from Asia combined. So we have to be creative and design ways that suit us to help our students achieve a similar outcome. For me, that’s the intrinsic mission of education.
F: I’ve taught in Hong Kong for a couple of years, and from my personal experience, I feel that it’s difficult to make Hong Kong students interested in science and technology; they are more interested in subjects like law, economics and business administration, probably because those are what society is interested in. So we have to draw them in patiently, by introducing them to the fun side of science and the logic behind it. Like art and literature, science is something that will fascinate you once you understand it better; but appreciating the beauty of science is not easy, it takes a lot of work to get there.
L: I’m going to answer this question from a different angle. I was once asked: “What did you learn from the best university in the world?” I answered: “I was at once humbled and hopeful, humbled because I was surrounded by so many extremely talented people, hopeful because I was with them every day, and I knew that if I worked really hard, I would not be lagging behind too much. ” I think it’s very important to keep our students both humbled and hopeful, in other words, to instil in them both humility and confidence. Prof. Yao does exactly that! He opens students’ eyes because he himself and the people he invites to give lectures are all top computer scientists. He boosts students’ confidence through various ways, including helping them to publish papers at top international conferences. I think that instilling in students both humility and confidence is an important mission of education.
I think another mission of education is to motivate students to devote themselves to scholarship by the teacher’s own example. In order to become a world-class scholar, you must have a master to serve as your role model. I think a very important thing Prof. Yao has done for his students is to make them realise that as long as they work hard, they might one day attain the same level. It’s very important for teachers to not just teach but also motivate, which is exactly what masters like Prof. Yao, Prof. Franklin Chen-Ning Yang and Prof. Shing-Tung Yau have done. In today’s society, with the current education system, it’s very difficult to make students interested in learning, much less to teach them the correct method to learn, which is a shame. Because with interest and correct method, a teacher could draw students like a magnet, like Prof. Yao does. There are over one hundred professors and several hundred outstanding students at MIT, and this creates an environment that keeps you motivated, which is very important. And this is what happens in the “Yao Class”—thirty people are motivating each other.
Frances: “Choose the path where you can contribute the most to the world.”
J: You three have achieved remarkable success in research and education. What is your definition of “success”?
Y: I think success is when you look back on your life and ask yourself if you are pleased with the journey and if you have tried your best and have had some impact on the world, you can say yes.
L: I couldn’t agree more. “Always try your best” has been my motto since a young age. When I was in middle school, China was in a state of turbulence, and going to university was something I never dared to think about even in my wildest dreams—for one thing, Macao didn’t have any university, only Hong Kong did; for another, I had no money, I couldn’t even afford tuition fees and I constantly worried about where my next meal would come from. To put it simply, I couldn’t see a future, but still I studied very hard, because of my belief in that motto. It’s been sixty years since I left Macao in 1952, but this attitude hasn’t changed one bit. I’ve been hosting a radio programme for seven or eight years now, and even for a little thing like that, I always do my best.
F: Prof. Liu returned to Taiwan from the US to be the president of Tsing Hua University, where in addition to teaching, he used his experience, wisdom and talents to develop Tsing Hua in various areas and played a greater role in the academic circle. More importantly, I think his return has had a motivational impact on me, Prof. Yao and other professors who have chosen or might one day choose to return to Asia. So I think to achieve meaningful success, you should choose a path where you can use your strengths to make the greatest contribution to your country and the world.
(The English is a translation of the interview conducted in Chinese)
Postscript
Scientific inventions begin with original ideas, develop with explorations and practice, and prosper with talent nurturing. What Prof. Yao, Frances and Prof. Liu have in common is their dedication to education and to serving society. Their achievements speak for themselves, and are deeply inspirational for UM in its efforts to implement a multi-faceted education model and to become a world-class university.
Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao
Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao is a well-known computer scientist and recipient of an honorary doctorate from UM. He is recognised as one of the world’s leading scholars in the theory of computation. He received the Turing Award in 2000 from the world’s leading Association for Computing Machinery, becoming the first and the only overseas Chinese computer scientist to date to have won this award since its founding. Prof. Yao has taught at numerous renowned universities in the US, including MIT, Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2004 he became a professor of computer science at Tsinghua University, Beijing, where he successively founded a computer science pilot class (more commonly known as the “Yao Class”), the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, and the Center for Quantum Information. He is also a Distinguished Professor-at-Large at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Prof. David Chung-Laung Liu
Prof. David Chung-Laung Liu is a world-renowned computer scientist, recipient of an honorary doctorate from UM, and William Mong Honorary Chair Professor of Computer Science at Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He has taught at MIT, the University of Illinois and Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He was associate provost at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and president of Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He has published over 180 technical papers, eight technical books and seven Chinese essay collections. He has been hosting a weekly radio programme on technology and humanities for the radio station IC975 in Hsinchu, Taiwan, since 2005.
Prof. Frances Yao
Prof. Frances Yao is a chair professor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing. She received her PhD degree in mathematics from MIT in 1973. She has taught at the University of Illinois, Brown University and Stanford University. She joined the City University of Hong Kong in 2003 and served as the head of the Department of Computer Science. Her research interests cover various areas in theoretical computer science, specialising in computational geometry and combinatorial algorithms. Her papers “Speed-up in Dynamic Programming” and “A Scheduling Model for Reduced CPU Energy” ushered in an important new branch in the studies of algorithms.
UM this year conferred honorary doctorates upon four distinguished individuals, namely Prof. Arden Lee Bement, Jr., the Most Venerable Master Hsing Yun, Dr. Ambrose So Shu Fai and Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, in recognition of their outstanding contributions in research, culture and education. The conferment ceremony was held on 16 November 2012. Dr. Chui Sai On, chief executive of Macao SAR and chancellor of UM, presided over the ceremony.
Prof. Arden Lee Bement, Jr., renowned materials scientist
Prof. Arden Lee Bement, Jr., recipient of the Degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa, has made outstanding contributions in his many important leadership roles in industry, academia, and government agencies. He was in charge of science and technology affairs at numerous international organisations. He is currently a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering. Prof. Bement conducts materials research in support of advanced engineering conversion technologies. He successively served as professor of nuclear materials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), member of the US-USSR Bilateral Exchange Program in MHD, head of the MIT Fusion Technology Program, deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He was the director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Under his directorship, NSF opened its office in Beijing, China, which played an important role in enhancing Sino-US collaboration in science and technology.
The Most Venerable Master Hsing Yun, founder of the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order
The Most Venerable Master Hsing Yun, recipient of the Degree of Doctor of Humanities honoris causa, is the founder of the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order. He has established himself as an influential world religious and philanthropic figure, with a large following worldwide. He has built more than two hundred temples all over the world. He has dedicated his whole life to the study of the philosophy of religion. He is well-read, a prolific author, and is committed to the advancement of philanthropic, educational and cultural causes. He has founded a large number of educational institutions both at home and abroad, including nine art galleries, twenty-six libraries and publishers, twelve bookstores, over fifty Chinese schools, and sixteen Tsung Lin Buddhist colleges. Master Hsing Yun has received numerous honours. In 1978, he became the first Buddhist monk to receive an honorary doctorate from the Eastern University in the US. In 1992, he was elected honorary president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. In 1995, he received the Buddha Ratna Award from the All India Buddhist Conference.
Dr. Ambrose So Shu Fai, distinguished figure in the business world
Dr. Ambrose So Shu Fai, recipient of the Degree of Doctor of Social Sciences honoris causa, has made significant contributions to the economic and cultural exchange and collaboration between Macao, Hong Kong, China and Portugal, especially in fostering Macao’s role as a platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries. He is presently CEO of SJM Holdings Limited, Director of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, S.A., member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Portugal in Hong Kong SAR, member of the Economic Development Council and of the Cultural Consultative Council of the Macao SAR government, and President of the Board of Directors of the Macau Military Club. Dr. So has served in Macao’s gaming and tourism industry for more than 35 years, during which time he has made relentless efforts to the professionalism, regulation and diversification of the gaming industry. Dr. So is a devoted calligrapher and has held numerous solo exhibitions. In 2009 he was awarded the Medal of Cultural Merit by the Macao SAR government.
