Xie Xide
With wide and disarming eyes, a woman of small statue graciously waved to the visitor and greeted in a soft and unaffected voice. This is how Takashi Oka, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor described his first impression of Xie Xide. One could hardly believe that this gentle woman was a physicist and served as President of Fudan University from 1983 to 1989, the first female president of a Chinese University.
“As a scientist, as long as my heart is still beating, I will always fight for the progress of science”, said Xie Xide. During her whole life, she practiced what she preached. Her devotion to education and science was engraved in the history of Fudan University, and her words and action have inspired Fudan students from generation to generation.
Struggling against illness
On March 19, 1921, Xie was born in the port city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province, southeastern China. His father Xie Yuming was a physicist at Yenching University in Beijing. Under the her father's influence, Xie was a top student in school. She spent her peaceful childhood in Beijing, where she also met her future husband Cao Tianqin. When the War against Japanese aggression began in 1937, she fled out of Beijing with her parents.
Xie Xide in her youth
After wandering different places in China, her family finally reached Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou province in the fall of 1938. During their flight, Xie contracted tuberculosis in her hip joint. Due to the poor medical conditions back then, the teenage girl had to put on a cast and was hospitalized for three years. She spent another year at home recuperating. Despite her illness, Xie never stopped learning. While bedridden, she read widely and taught herself English, calculus and physics. Whenever her mother tried to persuade her to read less out of concern for her health, Xie always replied, “I love reading. While reading, I am able to forget my illness. Books to me are the most effective medicine.” Taken great care by her family, in 1942, not only did Xie recover, she was also admitted to Xiamen University to study physics and mathematics before graduating in 1946.
Returning to motherland
Xie Xide
Xie finally managed to further her study in the United States in 1947. She won a scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in physics at Smith College, before she continued her studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1951. Meanwhile, her future husband Cao Tianqin also got his doctorate at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. The couple learned about the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the letters they received from relatives and friends back in China. Eager to make contributions to their motherland, they were determined to return home.
Xie on the ship back to China
Devoting herself to science education
After Xie returned to China, she taught at the Department of Physics, Fudan University from 1952 to 1956. Within the five years, she offered 8 courses, such as “Solid-state Physics” and “Quantum Mechanics”. As her colleagues and students recalled, Xie was admired by students for her conscientious attitude towards academics. Each semester, she would offer a new course. Even during her pregnancy, she wrote teaching plans at home for her colleagues to continue the lectures in place of her. In 1958, she passed out in her lab due to overworking and was diagnosed with late-stage kidney stone and heart disease. But she resumed teaching after several major surgeries.
In 1977, Xie founded the Fudan Institute of Modern Physics. From 1978 to 1983 she served as the director of the Institute. Meanwhile, she obtained funding for the establishment of eight modern research laboratories in surface physics. She helped revive the study of physics in China by aiding hundreds of young physicists to study abroad.
Xie Xide
Her excellent performance made her Vice President of Fudan University in 1978 and President in 1983. She served in that capacity until 1988.
To have a woman leading a university was unusual at that time in China. “Many Chinese take it for granted that a university president must be a man,” Xie said. But the development of Fudan University during her tenure soon proved to the public that she was fully qualified in that position. Realizing the defects in discipline layout of the university, she took the lead in overthrowing the Soviet Union type of university in which subjects were divided into liberal arts and sciences. She established 5 new faculties, including the Faculty of Technological Sciences, the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Faculty of Management Sciences. In addition, she promoted innovation in scientific research, and encouraged academic exchanges at home and abroad.
As an outstanding educator, Xie helped develop China’s educational relations with the international community. Her own experience of being a returnee enabled her to realize the importance of learning from foreign countries. During her tenure, she actively sent teachers and students to study abroad. She also founded the Fudan Center for American Studies in 1985, one of the major research institutions for American studies in China.
Back then, China had more than 6,000 students studying in the U.S. at government expense. Most of them studied science and technology. To Xie, that was the most tangible proof that China’s opening-up policy was here to stay.
However, concerns about whether these students would return to China also arose. “It’s quite an investment,” said Xie of the students, “They are the cream of our crop.”
Fudan alumnus Zhu Min, former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, mentioned that Xie wrote his recommendation letter when he was going to study abroad. He recalled that since they didn’t have a computer, Xie typed the recommendation letter with an old-fashioned typewriter. When she finished, she signed and handed it to him, saying, “Study hard, Zhu Min. The hope (of the future) is in your hands.” “She didn’t force me to come back. Instead, she trusted I would come back,” said Zhu.
Notwithstanding her position, Xie was always approachable and modest. After she was appointed president, the university arranged a special car for her daily commute. But she insisted to take the shuttle bus every day, in spite of her disability in her right leg. She said taking the bus was a good opportunity for her to listen to teachers’ opinions on different matters about the university.
Xie’s down-to-earth and approachable personality earned her great popularity from Fudan teachers and students. Many Fudan students were fond of listening to Xie’s speech at the University’s opening ceremony, because it was simple but informative. Wang Zengfan, who assisted Xie on paperwork for 10 years and authored many of her speeches, still remembered Xie’s requirements for her speech. Xie said, “Don’t keep talking about our achievements. Talk about our problems. Don’t use so many adjectives to exaggerate or boast. Use plain words instead.”
Contributing to scientific progress until her last moment
Xie Xide
On the evening of March 4, 2000, Xie died of breast cancer at the age of 79. Until then, she had been fighting against cancer for 34 years.
Even when Xie was in hospital at the final stage of her life, she still worked in bed. Her student Wang Xun recalled, “She could neither get up from bed nor speak. There was a prize she won and she was awarded HK $100,000. It was a big sum at that time. Concerned about how to spend the money, I was asked to come to the hospital and was told that she intended to donate this money to our laboratory for scientific research.”
Xie’s last request was to donate her body to hospital, same as her husband.
Xie believed that true happiness was the ability to dedicate oneself to the development of the country and cultivation of talents. Pursuing a distinguished career as a scientist, she made important contributions in the field of solid-state physics, pioneered the research of surface physics and established the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her book Semiconductor Physics was one of the most widely used physics textbooks in China. As an educator and the first female president of a comprehensive university in China, she trained a large number of much-needed semiconductor-specific talents. Her life of devotion and perseverance will always enlighten Fudan students in the pursuit of their own dreams.
