30 / / 31 and become a good person at the same time. Better still if the two endeavours are fully integrated. 2. The most solid foundation of becoming a good person lies in successful pursuit of knowledge; the highest aspiration of pursuing knowledge is to become a good person. 3. The foundation core of both pursuing knowledge and becoming good is the love of ones’ family, teachers, friends, country, nation, and humankind. The ultimate aspiration behind pursuing knowledge and becoming good is to comprehend human cultures as well as to contribute to social advancement. 4. Abandon selfinterested calculations, and reject the shallow notion that schooling is just for seeking employment. 5. A job is for oneself, but a career is for the people. Aspiring to serve others, one will naturally have a job; focussing on job search, one may not build a real career.’ These articles may reflect an example of aspiration to revive the educational ideal traditional shuyuan. The construction of New Asia’s premise started only subsequently with funding from YaleChina Association. In 1963, together with Chung Chi College and United College, it became one of the three constituent colleges to form The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). In recent decades, college modelling on traditional shuyuan, with emphasis on character cultivation, has become a popular mode of high education proliferating across China. As an integral part of universi ty educat ion, the residential college system has also received attention from the higher education sector in China since the turn of the century. Here we mention two examples – the fully residential S.H. Ho College of CUHK established in 2006, and the resident ial col leges of Fudan University launched in 2005, whose characteristics typify residential colleges in China. As noted in passing, CUHK was founded in 1963 as a federation of three liberal arts colleges. Since 1976, the academic function (department structure and degree programmes) of these three colleges were centralised to the University’s Faculties of Arts, Science, Business, Engineering and Education. The role of the colleges changed. While the colleges continued to provide accommodations and pastoral care for their students, they were also responsible for providing some general educat ion. In 2012, the undergraduate curriculum in publicly-funded universities in Hong Kong changed from a three-year system to a four-year one. CUHK added five new colleges, thus being able to offer on-campus housing to more than 50% of the undergraduate students. Some of these new colleges became fully residential, requiring their students to reside in college for the entirety of the four years of undergraduate study. One such example is the S.H. Ho College, housing a total of 600 students. In addition to daily and extra-curricular activities, the College offers two three-credit college general education courses, accounting for more than a quarter of the total credit requirement for general education. The purpose of college general education at CUHK across all the colleges is to express the ‘mission and traditions of each constituent college’ and contribute to ‘the holistic development of students to become responsible citizens of the world’. The S.H. Ho College’s motto is ‘Culture, Morals, Devotion, Trustworthiness’. Its educational vision is to nurture students with ‘a refined appreciation of culture, high moral standards, and a strong sense of responsibility and integrity’. The two ‘core founding concepts’ of the college centre on imbuing the warmth of ‘home’ and offering distinctive out-of-class learning opportunities. The latter is also known in educational circles as the second classroom. Fudan University announced to establish Fudan College in 2005 as a teaching, research and administrative institution for the implementation of general education in the university. I t was at that t ime responsible for the educat ion and teaching management of al l first-year and part of second-year undergraduate students. Concurrently, drawing on the practices of residential colleges in overseas universities and carrying on the cultural tradition of Chinese shuyuan, four colleges were established under Fudan College, namely Zhide College, Tengfei College, Keqing College and Renzhong College, with learning and self-cultivation as the core values, supplemented by transformation and care. The combination of the residential college system and the academic tutor system, complemented by a liberal studies core curriculum, promoted a holistic approach to general education. First-year students lived and studied together in colleges, regardless of their affiliated Faculties. Each college was a residential building that not only served as a living space for students, but also as a space for students to exchange academic ideas, discuss life experiences, develop a sense of community, and enhance their consciousness. After the first year of college life at Fudan College, each new student was expected to be able to set far-sighted goals, build a strong academic foundation, refine their characters, cultivate the spirit of Fudan, as well as pave the way for learning in their majors and their all-round development in the following three years. In 2012, Fudan Univers i ty announced that the new Fudan College would be re-organised as an undergraduate college. It was to incorporate Xide College, established the previous year, to form the five residential colleges under the Fudan College umbrella. The college has thus been transformed from an administrative unit to a functional entity. It changed from being responsible for the overall management, learning and cultivation of students in the foundational first year, to assuming responsibility for the all-round development of students as a ‘second classroom’ throughout the undergraduate years. Students are also grouped by majors into specific colleges by certain broadly-defined disciplinary categories, for instances, engineering and technology students were in Tengfei College, humanities and management students in Renzhong College, and science students in Xide College. Fudan University’s stated goals in nurturing talents are: ‘to foster builders and successors of socialism with an all-around development in morality, intellect, physique, aesthetics and hands-on labour. It stands for an education characterised by ‘national identity, humanism, scientific spirit, professionalism, and an international outlook’, so as to nurture more talented leaders, professional elite, and cream of society, for the prosperity of the country, the development of society and the advancement of human civilisation. Lastly, it commits to nurture Fudan Men and Women who will be responsible for national rejuvenation and for making a better future’. The residential colleges are serving as a major vehicle to realise the Fudan’s education mission. Residential colleges are recently springing up all over China. The first education forum on university residential college systems was held at Beihang University in 2014, where a residential college alliance was established. By 2021, seven such fora had been held at different universities, attended by thousands of scholars from over a hundred universities, and five volumes of essays had been published. Overall, publication of research papers written in Chinese on residential colleges proliferated, with topics investigated becoming more in-depth and research quality rising steadily. Although the design of the residential college system and the allocation of resources vary greatly from one university to another, the common thread is the recognition that universities must nurture the character of students in addition to imparting and creating knowledge. In the light of the above, the community education function of residential colleges is admittedly one of the most effective mechanisms for nurturing the character of university students at present. ╚锟⛿㶇䑑剹ꯗ侷芎溸⯽┿♂气 College Education in China and the West in Historical Perspective 睙┞ꌄ | PART I
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