PKU under fire for building 'elite' program in historic, public space

Gan Yang, an alumnus of Peking University (PKU) who now works as a professor at Renmin University of China, was in a rage.

The object of Gan's anger was the Yenching Academy, a controversial one-year master's program at PKU aimed at bringing 100 students from around the world to campus on full scholarship for English-language classes in the field of Chinese studies.

Gan wrote a public letter criticizing the PKU leaders for bypassing the university's faculty and students.

"The program's plan is to renovate a historical site [that currently serves as a public space] for the faculty and the students to be used as an exclusive residence for the program's students. How can we tolerate that?" Gan wrote. ""

"Why is it the responsibility of a first-tier university to offer a one-year master's program? Is it because [the program] is using English as the language of instruction, or is it because the program was meant to serve only the elite and privileged in the first place? " Gan asked.

Gan was not alone in his complaint.

The program, designed to "prepare an elite class of future leaders," was promoted by PKU leaders as a "first-of-its-kind" in the academic world, and PKU's largest undertaking of recent years.

However, the program came under fire almost from the moment it was announced.

A privileged few?

On the most controversial aspects of the Yenching Academy was its chosen location, a set of six historical buildings in the center of PKU campus known as the "Jingyuan."

In May, the program publicized its plans to renovate Jingyuan to serve as an exclusive residence for the program's students. The school administration also released a rendering depicting what the renovated buildings would look like upon completion.

The Jingyuan area is one of the main public venues on PKU campus for student activities and recreation. The six buildings surrounding the area formerly served as the office buildings for several major departments.

The chosen location of Jingyuan aroused fierce opposition from critics, who accused PKU leadership of elitism and out-of-touch academic bureaucracy.

"Why would you want to turn the Jingyuan into a palace?" Huang Jisu, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said. "Just a few classrooms where students can sit are enough. Look back through history, Socrates taught philosophy under the shades of trees. [He didn't even need a classroom]."

Additionally, most of the faculty and students opposed believe that renovating the Jingyuan area might contribute to growing educational inequality on campus.

While the school was proposing new on-campus residences for the students of Yenching Academy, many current students were forced into residences on a satellite campus after their dormitories on PKU campus were dismantled to save land.

"Does PKU mean to forge a privileged class among students?" Gao Fengfeng, a teacher in PKU's English department, said.

For what purpose?

Meanwhile, the program's vague curriculum, chosen area of specialization, and research goals also came in for wide questioning.

The program, which began a global admissions campaign in May, has yet to make public detailed course descriptions or syllabi, nor has it announced any faculty members or research targets.

To date there has been no information released on students' academic requirements aside from information on the program's official website describing its curriculum as falling into six broad concentrations: literature and culture, history and archaeology, philosophy and religion, public policy and international relations, economics and management, and law and society.

Such arrangements have aroused broad criticism from both PKU faculty and students. Some criticized the university of hastily setting up the academy to compete with Tsinghua University's Schwarzman Scholars program, another scholarship program announced in 2013 to much fanfare, while some said the one-year program was no more than a "short-term training class, built to cater to the trends of the moment."