On August 15, 2019, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management (Tsinghua SEM) held the Opening Ceremony and Orientation for freshmen of Class 2023.

Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor BAI Chong-En, Dean of Tsinghua SEM, Professor ZHONG Xiaohan, Associate Dean and Deputy Secretary of CPC Committee and Associate Professor ZHAO Dongqing, Deputy Secretary of CPC Committee, attended the ceremony with 244 freshmen of Class 2023.

Seeking Harmony but not Uniformity

At the beginning, Dean BAI Chong-En delivered a speech entitled “Seeking harmony but not uniformity”. He cited models and conceptions in economics and mathematics to illustrate the importance of personality in understanding the world and making contributions to society. He drew an analogy between individual perception and a circle, the union of circle being collective perception. “Harmony” meant that society shared a common criterion towards the judgement and dissemination of truth while “diversity” denoted distinct visions of individuals. If “diversity” existed without “harmony” which meant there were no common criteria for the judgement of truth and no authenticity and integrity in the spread of information, individual perception would not be effectively united into collective perception, resulting in messes and conflicts. If “harmony” existed without “diversity”, the scope of collective perception would be a set of concentric circles and only people with the largest scope of knowledge could be able to make contribution to social development. But if general criteria did exist, distinct perspectives could therefore contribute to the breakthrough in social cognition development. Just as the old saying goes “Stay calm even when you are not understood by others, that’s what a gentleman does”, though “diversity” might not be comprehended by other people sometimes, we’d better not be bothered with others’ critics.

In the end, he reiterated the theme of his last year’s speech “Remaining simple and modest”, which was closely related to the “liberal education” - a part of the educational philosophy of Tsinghua SEM. This year, emphasis was laid upon “personality development”, another aspect of the philosophy, by focusing on “Seeking harmony but not uniformity”. We hope that all the students can grasp the educational philosophy of the School, making an endeavor to become a Tsinghua SEMer who are equipped with high-minded values and are capable of making preeminent contributions for society.

Afterwards, Dean BAI presented books entitledZhu Rongji on the Recordas gifts to freshmen representatives on behalf of the School. By presenting the books, we hope that all the students can begin to associate the progress of Chinese economic reforms with the knowledge of economics and management after entering the university.

Be happy, be hardworking, and be outstanding

Associate Professor JIANG Peng, Department of Leadership and Organization Management of Tsinghua SEM, mentioned that “CTMR” was one of the first quality curriculums that was introduced in the Tsinghua SEM course reform in 2006, gaining popularity among students in the past few years. At first, he said that he wanted the students to “be happy, be hardworking, be outstanding”, after which he raised three questions: How to arrange the sequence of “happy, hardworking, and outstanding”? How to define these three concepts? Whether these three words should be in past tense, progressive tense or comparative degree? JIANG claimed that “the secret of planning your life in the university” actually lied in the answers of these questions. What truly mattered was not the answer itself, but the process of analyzing, reasoning and persuading others and yourself.

Then, ZHONG Xiaohan introduced the educational philosophy and the planned course schedule for undergraduates to the freshmen. He cited experiences and dicta of Steven Jobs, MEI Yiqi, WANG Guowei and etc to explain the function of university education. He also introduced the idea of “liberal education, diversified development”, the solid and rich course schedule, colorful activities like the counseling committee, the MA Yuehan Cup and the afternoon tea with Dean, as well as a set of well-designed education mechanism including academic tutors and alumni instructors.

ZHAO Dongqing educated the freshmen in terms of academic moralities and disciplinary education. By sharing real cases, she vividly explained rules and regulations of the university and the school, underlining the fundamental function and importance of academic atmosphere and academic discipline to warn the students that they should never act against principles. ZHAO wished that students of Tsinghua SEM could “foster self-discipline, stick to principles, and be a Tsinghuaer with outstanding talents and high-minded qualities” especially in this year-the year of academic atmosphere construction.

Tsinghua SEM has enrolled 244 freshmen in 2019, including 192 students from the mainland, 14 students from Honkong, Macau and Taiwan and 38 international students.

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