Kuo Ting-yee Memorial Lecture

About the Lecturer
William C. Kirby is Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University.  He is a University Distinguished Service Professor.  Professor Kirby serves as Chairman of the Harvard China Fund, the University's academic venture fund for China, and Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai, Harvard's first University-wide center located outside the United States. He was also former director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.

A historian by training, Professor Kirby examines contemporary China's business, economic, and political development in an international context.  He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; business relations across Greater China (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong); and China's relations with the United States and Europe.  He has authored or co-authored more than forty HBS cases on business in China, ranging from start-ups to SOEs; agribusiness and middle-class consumption; banking and microfinance; healthcare and education; corporate governance and corporate social responsibility; and the global strategies of Chinese firms.  His current projects include case studies of trend-setting Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China, Europe, and the United States. His most recent book is  Can China Lead?  (Harvard Business Review Press, Chinese edition《強國不強？》Taipei, 2016).

The World of Universities in the 21^st Century
German universities established the foundations of modern universities everywhere in the 19^th century. American universities had enormous international influence by the end of the 20^th century.  What then are the prospects for Chinese universities to set global standards in the 21^st century?  This lecture series will be based on eight case studies of universities on three continents.  These lectures will investigate the past and present as well as the future prospects of leading universities in Germany, the United States, and Greater China. It will explore the role of faculty, finances, and governance in what makes for a great university.  It will examine and assess three systems of higher education that have defined, or promise to define, excellence in higher education.

Lecture 1 (10am, October 17, 2017)
From Berlin to Berkeley:  The Making and Unmaking of the Modern Research University

Lecture 2 (10am, October 19, 2017)
A Chinese Century?  The Challenges of Liberal Education in China, Past and Present