Pan Gongkai (president of China Central Academy of Fine Arts)
The development of universities is directly related with the set-up of new disciplines and a complete disciplinary system, as well as with the expansion of teaching space and improvement of teaching conditions. “What makes a good university is the amount and quality of masters it owns, in stead of the amount and quality of buildings that stand,” what educationist Mei Yiqi said has become the most quoted saying when Chinese people discuss about university. It shows the common ideal of constructing good universities--- bringing in qualified teachers and other human resources. However, in the other sense, it does not fit well with the current trend of education in China and the education philosophy of the new era. In my opinion, except for the “masters”, the “buildings” are also one of a university’s basic qualities. There will be no universities without buildings, because without buildings, how can they attract intelligence and offer a good learning environment for students? Thus, I believe “masters” and “buildings” are both necessary for universities. The point is, the building should be built for dedicated masters, for the future of students, for the long-term development of universities and for the future development of academic disciplines in China. In a nutshell, a great university must have both “masters” and “buildings”, only by this can it have the spirit of university and the confidence of long-term development.
Entering 21st century, China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) has been developing fast in both campus environment and teaching facilities. It is the result of the leapfrog development of China’s higher education. When I first came to CAFA, it just moved from the temporary campus in Dashanzi to the new campus in Huajiadi. Buildings of 80,000 square meters were built up with space designated for Affiliated High School. The space of Huajiadi campus was designed for a student population of 1,200 to 1,500. When I got transferred to CAFA in 2001, The leapfrog development of China’s higher education was drawing to a close. At that time, I felt the size of CAFA was too small compared with other art universities. We needed more space for one reason, we needed to expand the numbers of disciplines; for the other reason, the Ministry of Education required universities all around the nation to expand enrollment. Under this circumstance, we had to consider expanding the campus. At that time, there were three blocks of land available after the campus moving finished. We had planned to build teaching buildings on these blocks of land but failed to get the subsidy from the government. Thus we tried hard to negotiate with National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Education to get the subsidy for new buildings. At first this proposal did not get approved, so we planned to move out the Affiliated High School to make more space for CAFA. At the same time, we started to look for new site and partners for Affiliated High School.
After many rounds of negotiation with the government, we finally won its support to build new teaching buildings on the three blocks of land. Counting in the space of the art gallery and foreign affairs center in Wangfujing, the government approved we add more than 20 thousand square meters to our campus with a subsidy of 1.5 billion. However, it still could not meet our goals in enrollment and teaching. So we appealed more rounds and finally got the approval from the government and got to expand the campus space from 20,000 to 53,000 square meters, with a subsidy increased to 3 billion.
The endeavor was hard but essential. Without the teaching buildings and facilities, the expansion of discipline and enrollment would be greatly limited, thus the academy’s financial operation and academic development would not proceed smoothly. Without the teaching buildings and facilities, it would be impossible for teaching and research to form. Many teachers only paid attention to their teaching work, thinking that the guarantee of teaching quality means checking homework like sketch painting everyday. However, they failed to connect facility construction, financial revenue and discipline expansion with teaching quality. Bu I am quite sure: it was impossible for a university to develop its academic level brand at the international stage, if it did not have enough campus space, students, and especially a complete discipline structure. Although I put the development of discipline structure at the first place, to support this goal, as well as to develop CAFA to an overall-discipline fine art university, to expand the population of students from 1,000 to 3,000-4,000, and to build a positive cycle for the academy’s financial status, we put much effort on developing basic facilities.
After I took over the position of CAFA’s President, I planned three steps of facility development for the Huajiadi campus. The first step was to build up a dormitory that could accommodate 1,600 students, so that the academy can accommodate up to 3,000 students in total. The second step was to build a 23,000-square-meter teaching building, which offered enough teaching space for the two new disciplines - design and architecture. Meanwhile, the main teaching building which was built previously could then be used by School of Plastic Arts and School of Chinese Painting. The third step was to build up a modern art gallery. After several rounds of discussion, we finally decided to invite famous Japanese designer Arata Isozaki to design the building of the gallery. The new gallery is the most modern and international one in China, and has drawn attention from domestic and international art schools.
Besides the development of Huajiadi campus, the moving of Affiliated High School also provided more extra space for CAFA’s teaching, though it was a hard process. First, we moved Affiliated High School to a new campus. Since many teachers had moved once from Wangfujing, they felt reluctant to move again. We had worked hard on persuading them to move. The new campus site for Affiliated High School was set in Yanjiao, the eastern part of Beijing. In 2005, CAFA spent 40 million yuan to buy a piece of 220-acre land there, to build the new campus. The Yanjiao new campus was larger than Huajiadi campus, thus it provides an ideal environment for the future development of Affiliated High School. And there is half of the campus can be used for the development of undergraduate study in the future.
Now since Beijing’s housing price is very expensive, many universities have to stop expanding their campus. So from today’s point of view, the purchase and development of Yanjiao campus site helped develop the long-term development potential and has paved the way for my successors.
If I do a bit of accounts here, since I took over the position of CAFA’s President in 2001, the construction projects that I have planned and supervised covers as large as 130,000 square meters, and the number can be as big as more than 200,000 square meters if I count in the phase-one construction project of CAFA. Compared with other domestic and international art universities, it is fair to say that CAFA is one of the largest in the world.
In fact, the high-speed development of higher education in China in the most recent decade was closely related with the way how the national government invested in it. From 1950s to 1980s, the government invested according to the staff’s levels and numbers of an institution. After 1990s, the way of investment changed to base on the number of students. This change had an essential impact on enrollment expansion of higher education in China. In the recent decades, the higher education in China has been developing fast, and the way the government invests plays an important role in it: many universities have been expanding the enrollment to improve their financial status. Now CAFA is in a healthy financial condition, with the teachers’ salary doubled, which mainly thanks to the increase in the number of students. Now there are more than 4,000 students studying in CAFA (including the School of Urban Design), compared to the only 700 students when I first came to CAFA. The fast increase of student number has put CAFA in a good development cycle.
When I look back to my work in CAFA, I have put my efforts on setting up new majors, reconstructing disciplinary structure, and upgrading the facilities. This large-scale reform took place as the result of the discussion and research with academic board, leader group, party committee, and middle level leaders from departments to the academy, as well as the efforts of all the staff. Actually this reform had some risks, for example, the new disciplines were lack of available teachers, and there was little space and limited facilities for the new disciplines. The achievements we got now were all from our consistent efforts.
At the end of 2005, I spoke in the faculty meeting of CAFA, that after 4-year effort, CAFA has majorly completed its academic blueprint for the future, and it would change from “the period of high-speed development” to “the period of deepening reforms”. In the 1990s when Mr. Jin Shangyi was the president of CAFA, the goal of CAFA was “to lay the foundation for CAFA to better adapt to the needs of China’s socialist modernization process and become a world-class fine art academy”. Entering the new century, our positioning is “world-class, modern art university with Chinese characteristics”, and our academic goal is “the highest level of teaching quality and academic achievements in China”. In the past, CAFA was the first-class in China, and now we strive to be the first-class in the world. The basic requirements of the “first-class universities” in the world are: modern philosophy on school management, complete disciplines, above-medium size, high-quality teachers and students, high-level academic achievements, adequate funds, first-class campus and equipments, modern management, and good school spirits. To follow these requirements, we will further consider the overall development of the school and move forward step by step toward our goals.
It is foreseeable that in the first 20 years of 21st century, with the improvement of China’s comprehensive national strength and its growing influence in the world, the cultural field in China, including the fine art field, will see major changes from concept to performance. Chinese culture will also be further exposed in the spotlight on the world stage. In such a background, CAFA should take the leading role in the reform and development of the national fine art education and academic research. Especially under the trend of globalization, we need to construct a cultural image and value system with Chinese characteristics. This has become the historical mission of ours. This mission is essential and glorious, and it is also difficult and tough. All of this requires me and the university teachers to show courage, wisdom and spirit of sacrifice, to face up to and to accept this long-term challenge.
When a fine art university has masters of painting, design and academia, elegant and modern buildings, and complete and cutting-edge disciplines in the field, it will certainly represent the highest level of domestic art education and will be the first-class by international standards.
