The new chancellor of New York University Shanghai, Yu Lizhong, is a pioneering educator facing an enormous challenge: building a new higher education model that focuses on proactive learning and independent thinking.

If that model succeeds and catches on, the former geography professor, and others involved in the bold enterprise, will make history as education reformers in China.

“It may propel the reform of China’s higher education because NYU Shanghai introduces a new way of education cooperation and a new model of teaching and learning that aims to cultivate elite world citizens,” 64-year-old Yu told Shanghai Daily in a recent interview.

In his view, there are too many critiques and not enough concrete action when it comes to reforming education.

Yu is also a web celebrity known for his unconventional openness in communicating, personally dealing with student problems and involving students in governance. He is far from the aloof academic and his style has been controversial among some academics and bureaucrats — but welcomed by students. It definitely works for NYU.

Before being tapped by NYU, Yu was president of East China Normal University (ECNU) from 2006 to 2012 where he blogged frequently on social networks such as Renren and Sina weibo. He opened his “President Online” column on a campus BBS when he was president of Shanghai Normal University from 2003 to 2006.

NYU Shanghai is China’s first, full-fledged Sino-American institute of higher learning and part of the NYU Global Network University. It has partnered with ECNU, a prestigious institution that dates back to St John’s University founded in 1925.

NYU classes began this month for 295 undergraduates, all freshmen — 150 from China, 145 from the United States and 35 other countries. They’re at ECNU until their Lujiazui campus is completed next year.

The curriculum is interactive and all in English but it’s not a copy of NYU.

“It combines the NYU curriculum with the good ideas of other world-class universities, as well as some Chinese elements,” Yu said. Students can take courses such as Traditional Chinese Wisdom and Its Transformation in Modern Times and China’s Development in a Comparative Perspective.

“Students have to change their old way of learning from high school and cultivate a self-directed and proactive learning habit,” Yu said. “Teachers and their international peers will help them adapt to a Western style of learning through more reading, more thinking, more activities, more interaction, and more discussions.

“I hope Chinese students will enjoy learning here but they must know the road to success is not smooth.”

Yu, a Shanghai native, set two major goals when he took the helm of ECNU — promoting interdisciplinary studies and building a university on the international higher education platform.

“Chinese universities need a new yardstick to measure academic excellence rather than simply competing in how many national-level key laboratories, how many famous academicians and scholars they have,” he said.

One of his aims is to help NYU Shanghai become one of the world’s elite research universities.

Liberal arts is essential; a broad, interdisciplinary liberal arts education has not been adopted successfully in China. NYU Shanghai aims to provide one. All students will receive a two-year liberal arts education before they choose a major.

China’s higher education system is broadly criticized for being too rigid, too specialized and focused on applied learning, not encouraging creativity and critical thinking.

Many diploma mills turn out graduates ill-equipped to compete in the modern jobs market. Around 6.9 million students graduated this year. Many graduates are unemployed or underemployed.

Yu acknowledges the criticisms, but says, “There have been too many critiques of China’s education and not enough action. We’re working hard to find way forward with reform.”

Former ‘rusticated youth’ says no pain no gainYu, an easy-going but determined former geography professor, is a celebrity with nearly 1.6 million followers on his weibo microblog (weibo.com/u/1741419815), which he uses to communicate with students, take in their feedback, and now share his ideas about NYU Shanghai.

“It’s a chancellor’s responsibility to know students’ ideas and help them,” said Yu, a tireless blogger.

At East China Normal University in May 2012, a student posted a photo of what he said was swill oil, meaning reused cooking oil, used in the school cafeteria. That created a scare. Yu called for an investigation and found that the photo in question showed kitchen workers actually cleaning out pipes, not recycling oil. All cooking oil is properly recycled by a licensed company and is not reused in the cafeteria, he found. Yu verified the facts, informed the student in detail, and posted a reassuring message.

Administration is relatively new to Yu. Seventeen years ago, he was not interested. He simply wanted to be a teacher and researcher, a recognized scholar in his field of environmental science.

Yu spent nearly 10 years in the countryside as one of the “rusticated youth” at Changshuihe Farm in northeast Heilongjiang Province.

He told the incoming NYU Shanghai class that the most unbearable thing was seeing no future for himself until he learned the National College Entrance Exam, or gaokao would be resumed in 1977. It had been suspended for 10 years during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76).

To prepare, Yu learned all the high school courses by himself in a few months. He worked on the farm in the daytime and used a flashlight to study at night under his mosquito net. He wrote key mathematics and physics equations in his palm before going to work in the morning so that he could  go over the equations.

Yu was in the second group of students to take the reinstated National College Entrance Exam.

Drawing on his personal experience, he urged students not to give up despite frustrations and to persist and think positively.

“I had a dream of college so I went for it,” he said. “Everyone should have a dream ... I just want to tell you that no pain, no gain.”

Yu received his undergraduate degree from ECNU and his PhD in geography from the University of Liverpool. He  taught for many years at ECNU.

Yu twice turned down an invitation to be an administrator. The third time he was persuaded by the chancellor of ECNU who said professors shouldn’t complain all the time about what they need but should try to solve problems as administrators. He turned to administration in 1996.

In 2003 he became president of Shanghai Normal University where he took very unconventional steps. He hired a group of students as assistants to help him connecting with the students and to collect complaints and suggestions from the student body. He also opened the President Online, which became a hit.

“The President Online column was a platform where students could pour out their complaints and get responses from me,” Yu said. “Without responses, students who have problems will get together to detest the school and misunderstand the administrators.”

At first, Yu himself was uncomfortable reading harsh criticism. “Later, I found that sometimes students were just trying to get attention, so I told my colleagues to be patient with students, as if they were their own children,” he said.

Yu said being reasonable is the best way to solve conflicts. He remembered a heated argument online with a student at ECNU. He invited the student to a face-to-face meeting and discovered the student was a “very rational girl.”

His style was unsettling and controversial among many staid bureaucrats and professors who said it was absurd and improper for students to sit in the president’s office collecting complaints and taking notes as if they were staff.

“I found the student assistants really helpful. I think it’s necessary to build a bridge between students and school administrators so that we can understand each other better,” Yu said.

“A good leader not only is a friend to students, but also works on behalf of the university.”

To promote internationalization, Yu invited New York University in New York City to set up an overseas study-away site at ECNU in 2006. Students from both schools took courses from NYU and ECNU professors and course credits were mutually recognized.

Cooperation on that study-away site laid the foundation for NYU Shanghai, a joint venture university between NYU and ECNU, he said.

After NYU moved in with the away-site, more foreign universities followed to set up their own overseas learning sites and joint research centers at ECNU. They included EMLYON Business School in France and Colorado State University in the US. These arrangements created a global education park with an international atmosphere on campus.

Yu played a major role in establishing NYU Shanghai. He became chancellor last April.

“Some people joked that I created a job for myself after I retired,” Yu said, “but what I did is a good thing for a Chinese university and something needed in Chinese education.”

He called being chancellor of NYU Shanghai the most tiring adminstrator’s job has yet undertaken “because the responsibility is boundless.”

“I feel great responsibility to ECNU and NYU communities. I also have great responsibilities to parents who send their children to the university and to students who gave up other opportunities to choose NYU Shanghai,” Yu said.

He interacts with many NYU students and parents on weibo.

He has encountered many difficulties, including coordinating with construction work on the school’s new 15-story campus in Lujiazui in Pudong New Area. Dealing with construction is not something typical Chinese chancellors would do.

“I was born in the Year of the Ox, so it is hard for me to give up before achieving my goals — making NYU Shanghai one of the world’s elite research universities,” he said.

Yu recently received France’s National Legion of Honor, the country’s highest award, in recognition of his contributions in promoting the higher education cooperation between France and China, when he was president of ECNU.