Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. The university is also a member of the C9 League.
Tsinghua University's campus is in northwest Beijing, on the site of the former imperial gardens of the Qing dynasty. The university has 21 schools and 59 departments, with faculties in science, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, history, philosophy, economics, management, education, and art.
Since the university was established in 1911, it has produced notable leaders in science, engineering, politics, business, and academia.
History
Early 20th century (1911–1949)
Tsinghua University was established in Beijing during a tumultuous period of national upheaval and conflicts with foreign powers which culminated in the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising against foreign influence in China. After the suppression of the revolt by a foreign alliance including the United States, the ruling Qing dynasty was required to pay indemnities to alliance members. United States Secretary of State John Hay suggested that the US$30 million Boxer indemnity allotted to the United States was excessive. After much negotiation with Qing ambassador Liang Cheng, president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt obtained approval from the United States Congress in 1909 to reduce the indemnity payment by US$10.8 million, on the condition that the funds would be used as scholarships for Chinese students to study in the United States.Using this fund, the Tsinghua College was established in Beijing, on 29 April 1911 on the site of a former royal garden to serve as a preparatory school for students the government planned to send to the United States. Faculty members for sciences were recruited by the YMCA from the United States, and its graduates transferred directly to American schools as juniors upon graduation. The motto of Tsinghua, "Self-Discipline and Social Commitment", was derived from a 1914 speech by prominent scholar and faculty member Liang Qichao, in which he quoted the I Ching to describe a notion of the ideal gentleman.
In 1925, the school established its own four-year undergraduate program and started a research institute on Chinese studies. In 1928, the school changed its name to National Tsinghua University.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, many Chinese universities were forced to evacuate their campuses to avoid the Japanese invasion. In 1937, Tsinghua University, Peking University and Nankai University merged to form the National Changsha Temporary University, located in Changsha, Hunan. The merged university later became the National Southwestern Associated University, located in Kunming, Yunnan. The Tsinghua University section of the merged university returned to Beijing at the end of World War II.
Later 20th century (post-1949)
After the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, China experienced a communist revolution leading to the creation of the People's Republic of China. Tsinghua University's then president Mei Yiqi, along with many professors, fled to Taiwan with the retreating Nationalist government. They established the National Tsing Hua Institute of Nuclear Technology in 1955, which later became the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, an institution independent and distinct from Tsinghua University.In 1952, the Chinese Communist Party regrouped the country's higher education institutions in an attempt to build a Soviet style system where each institution specialized in a certain field of study, such as social sciences or natural sciences. Tsinghua University was streamlined into a polytechnic institute with a focus on engineering and the natural sciences.
In 1953, Tsinghua established a political counselor program, becoming the first university to do so following the Ministry of Education's 1952 directive to begin piloting such programs. As political counselors, new graduates who were also Communist Party members worked as political counselors in managing the student body and student organizations, often simultaneously serving as Communist Youth League secretaries. The program was later expanded to other universities following its endorsement by Deng Xiaoping and became further institutionalized across China in the 1990s and 2000s.
During the Third Front construction, Tsinghua established a branch in Mianyang, Sichuan province.
In 1966, the efforts of Tsinghua researchers were critical in China's transition from vacuum-tube computers to fully transistorized computers.
From 1966 to 1976, China experienced immense sociopolitical upheaval and instability during the Cultural Revolution. Many university students walked out of classrooms at Tsinghua and other institutions, and some went on to join the Red Guards, resulting in the complete shutdown of the university as faculty were persecuted or otherwise unable to teach. It was not until 1978, after the Cultural Revolution ended, that the university began to take in students and re-emerge as a force in Chinese politics and society.
During the Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius campaign of 1973 to 1976, critique groups formed at Tsinghua and Peking University disseminated commentaries under the pseudonym of "Liang Xiao". The pseudonym sounds like a person's name but is a homophone for "two schools".
In the 1980s, Tsinghua evolved beyond the polytechnic model and incorporated a multidisciplinary system emphasizing collaboration between distinct schools within the broader university environment. Under this system, several schools have been re-incorporated, including Tsinghua Law School, the School of Economics and Management, the School of Sciences, the School of Life Sciences, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Public Policy and Management, and the Academy of Arts and Design.
In 1996, the School of Economics and Management established a partnership with the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One year later, Tsinghua and MIT began the MBA program known as the Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA.
In 1998, Tsinghua became the first Chinese university to offer a Master of Laws program in American law, through a cooperative venture with the Temple University Beasley School of Law.
21st century
Tsinghua alumni include the current General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and paramount leader of China, Xi Jinping '79, who graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, along with the CCP General Secretary and former Paramount Leader of China Hu Jintao '64, who graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering. In addition to its powerful alumni, Tsinghua has a reputation for hosting globally prominent guest speakers, with international leaders Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Carlos Ghosn, and Henry Paulson having lectured to the university community.As of 2018, Tsinghua University consists of 20 schools and 58 university departments, 41 research institutes, 35 research centers, and 167 laboratories, including 15 national key laboratories. In September 2006, the Peking Union Medical College, a renowned medical school, was renamed "Peking Union Medical College, Tsinghua University" although it and Tsinghua University are technically separate institutions. The university operates the Tsinghua University Press, which publishes academic journals, textbooks, and other scholarly works.Through its constituent colleges, graduate and professional schools, and other institutes, Tsinghua University offers more than 82 bachelor's degree programs, 80 master's degree programs and 90 PhD programs.
In 2014, Tsinghua established Xinya College, a residential liberal arts college, as a pilot project to reform undergraduate education at the university. Modeled after universities in the United States and Europe, Xinya combines general and professional education in a liberal arts tradition, featuring a core curriculum of Chinese and Western literature and civilization studies and required courses in physical education and foreign languages. Furthermore, while most Tsinghua undergraduates must choose a specific major upon entrance, Xinya students declare their majors at the end of freshman year, enabling them to explore several different fields of study.
In December 2014, Tsinghua University established the Advisory Committee of Undergraduate Curriculum. It became the first student autonomous organization in mainland China for students to participate in the school's management. The Tsinghua University Academic Committee, which was formally established on 8 July 2015, has stipulated in the committee's charter that students should be consulted through the ACUC for resolutions involving undergraduate students. From then on, Tsinghua commenced a new round of academic reform lasting ever since, including establishing GPA grading system, adding the writing classes, critical thinking classes, second foreign languages classes into curriculum, requiring undergrads to be able to swim before graduation, cooperating with the Peking University on class cross-registration to supplement each other's general education curriculum, reducing fees on class withdraw, transcripts and certificates, and adjusting the graduate school co-terminal admission policies.
In 2016, Schwarzman Scholars was established with almost US$400 million endowment by Steven Schwarzman, the chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group and other multinational corporations and global leaders. Schwarzman Scholars annually selects 100–200 scholars across the world to enroll in a one-year fully-funded master's degree leadership program designed to cultivate the next generation of global leaders. 40% students are selected from the United States, 20% students are selected from China, 40% are selected from rest of the world. These scholars reside on the university campus at Schwarzman College, a residential college built specifically for the program.
In 2016, Tsinghua's expenditures were RMB 13.7 billion, the largest budget of any university in China. According to a 2018 Financial Times report, Tsinghua University has been linked to cyber-espionage.
In 2024, Tsinghua announced that its office of the university president had merged into the university's Chinese Communist Party committee, which would directly administer the university henceforth.