4月5日，中国日报亚洲版报道了我院朱宁教授和来自澳大利亚的John Hearn教授的从业和执教经历，关注亚太地区高级人才流动新动向。朱宁教授梳理了本院的发展成就，并对未来中国经济发展充满信心。
Reversing the brain drain
Zhu Ning left China in 1997 for graduate studies in finance in the US and stayed on to complete his PhD on How Investors’ Behavior Affects the Capital Market and the Financial System. Then he took on a teaching role at the University of California in 2003.
Five years later, he began thinking about what he wanted to do with his career. “After weighing several options, I joined the Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong,” says the 39-year-old from Beijing. “When it went bust and was taken over by Nomura Securities, I worked for them till 2010.”
It was the time the Shanghai government was trying to fund a public institution, an international business school that would help the city become a global financial center and help develop the Chinese financial market.
Zhu explains why he decided to go there.
“I had the experience of a free market and national banking business in the US … I wanted to contribute to education, research and innovation for students and professionals to have a better grasp of finance and the philosophy of finance, which would be important for enterprises in a decade or two.”
The Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF), established at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University with the strategic and financial support of the Shanghai municipal government, started on April 19, 2009. Zhu joined them and is now deputy director at SAIF.
“I am very pleased with the progress,” says the professor of finance. “In under five years SAIF has grown from one full-time faculty member to 17. They are PhDs and include colleagues who left their original positions in places like the Minnesota University, British Columbia University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.”
Today there are over 500 students in various programs. By setting up a Beijing campus last year, they have ensured that it is no longer a local school, but now a national one.
Zhu hopes his case will motivate others who have accomplished things overseas and are trying to make up their minds whether to come home.
“Of course it’s not easy,” he adds. “There are hurdles that have to be cleared. But they would have the satisfaction of using their knowledge to benefit their own country.”
He considers himself fortunate. When he returned, there were no outstandingly jarring notes.
“Others have faced culture shocks and frustration over the pollution, traffic congestion and lack of transparency in some of the administrative and business evaluation systems. That is all true,” he concedes.
“But one has to also take into consideration the fast economic growth in the last two decades. They should accept what China is right now and focus on what it will be eventually.”
Balancing best of East and West
John Hearn, a British-Australian, was born in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad in 1943, and grew up in the subcontinent. He first went to Australia in 1969 to do his PhD, after which he worked in India, China, Thailand, Brazil and elsewhere.
“It was in 1997, when I was working with the World Health Organization in Geneva that I wanted to go home to work with the Australian National University and University of Sydney,” the 69-year-old says from Sydney.
When he returned, Hearn found Australia had changed a lot: “It was a lot more international. Culturally, that was very good and attractive. There were many people from different cultures and life had become more international.
“Australia is also competitive. It is a slow growing economy but efficient. The research and innovation system is very competitive. Australians are also very good at entrepreneurship and innovation.”
Hearn, a senior scientific adviser to the Australian government in higher education, science and international partnerships, became chief executive of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) in 2009.
WUN is a partnership of 19 universities from 10 countries that works in research, education and mobility for greater international engagement and internationalization. Its thrust areas are climate change and food security, public health in non-communicable diseases, reform of higher education and research, and understanding cultures.
The physiology professor talks of the cultural difference in the West and East.
“While teaching in Australia, I found the students strong in questioning. They would question and challenge the professor. When I gave lectures in Chinese universities, nowhere did the students ask provocative questions.”
Hearn believes that a lack of respect for family, and for elders in particular, has become prevalent in modern western society. “It’s amusing that on the one hand we are critical of Chinese students for showing deference to their elders, while on the other hand, this is something we need to encourage in our own culture.”
About eight years ago, an Indian vice-president told Hearn that Indians are born with mathematics and business skills, which is evidenced from the fact that India provides so many chief executives and experts around the world in information technology and business. But the vast majority of Indians do not get an opportunity to develop their skills.
“India needs 1,000 more universities just to meet the demand in the next 10 years. It is an enormous challenge to meet. So is the demand for quality education,” he says.
“Look at China, which has similar problems with the increase in demands and in the number of students. There are not enough teachers, and the quality of teaching is often inadequate, (even) though the top universities in India and China have top ranking reputation.”
He believes the new technology and availability of quality courses on the Internet holds promise but the issue is complex: “Learning from courses on the Internet is not the same as going to university. Massive open online courses may not be the solution.”
Australia has half a million students from Asia and 85 percent of them are from China and India.
“Students returning to their own countries is a pretty encouraging trend,” says the man who, in a way, is also part of this trend. “China sent more than a million people abroad in the last 20 years. Now a lot of them are returning and we are studying how they are progressing.
“They are doing well, they have jobs and are helping in building business in China. We are also very interested in what their cultural approach is when they go back home.”
发布时间：2013-04-15
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