National Southwestern Associated University

When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out between China and Japan in 1937, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University merged to form Changsha Temporary University in Changsha and later National Southwestern Associated University (Lianda) (traditional Chinese: 國立西南聯合大學; simplified Chinese: 国立西南联合大学; pinyin: Guólì Xīnán Liánhé Dàxué) in Kunming and Mengzi, in Southwest China's Yunnan Province. After the war, the universities moved back and resumed their operation. What was left behind in Kunming became the National Kunming Normal University which later emerged as the Yunnan Normal University.

National Southwestern Associated University
國立西南聯合大學
Other name
Lianda (聯大)
Motto
刚毅坚卓
TypeNational university
ActiveApril 2, 1938 (1938-04-02)–May 4, 1946 (1946-05-04)
Parent institution
Peking University
Tsinghua University
Nankai University
PrincipalYunnan Normal University
Location
Kunming 1938-1946, Yunnan Province, China Republic of China (1912–1949)
Changsha 1937-1938
,
Hunan Province
,
China Republic of China (1912–1949)

25°03′33″N 102°41′42″E
CampusUrban

Faculty Administrative Organization

Headquarter

Executive Committee:Mei Yiqi (Chairman), Jiang Menglin, Zhang Boling

School of Liberal Art

Dean (in sequence): Hu Shih, Feng Youlan, Yang Zhensheng, Tang Yongtong, Lei Haizong. Assistant to the Dean: Shen Zhongzhang (Chung-Chang Shen).

Departments: Chinese Literature, Foreign Languages, History and Sociology, Philosophy and Psychology.

School of Science

Dean (in sequence): Wu Youxun, Rao Yutai, Ye Qisun.

Departments: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Geography and Meteorology.

School of Law and Business

Dean (in sequence): Fang Xianyan, Chen Xujing, Chen Daisun.

Departments: Political Science, Economics, Law, Business, Sociology.

School of Engineering

Dean (in sequence): Shi Jiayang, Li Jixiang. Secretary: Qiu Jixing (1939), Interns: Wang Xianwen, Liao Yue.

Departments: Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, Telecommunications (established in January 1939), Applied Mathematics.

Normal College

Dean (in sequence): Huang Zijian, Chen Xueping, Xu Zhenyang.

Research Institute of Liberal Arts, Peking University

Director: Hu Shih (School President concurrently)

Research Institute of Science

Director: Rao Yutai (Professor of the Department of Physics)

Research Institute of Law

Director: Zhou Binglin (Professor of the Department of Economics and concurrently)

[1]

History

Commemorative stone of the university

By summer 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army had bombed Nankai University to the ground in Tianjin and occupied areas including the campuses of two of the country's leading universities in Beijing: Peking University and Tsinghua University. These three universities, which were some of the country's most prestigious, modern institutions of higher learning and research, with the agreement of those who led the institutions — men of high standing who had been educated abroad — retreated to Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province (about 900 miles away from Beijing) to unite. By the middle of December 1937, many students had to leave to fight the Japanese when the city of Nanjing fell to enemy forces.

As the Japanese forces were gaining more territory, they bombed Changsha in February 1938. The 800 staff faculty and students who were left had to flee and made the 1,000 mile journey to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province in China's remote and mountainous southwest. It was here that the National Southwest Associated University (commonly known as 'Lianda') was formed. In these extraordinary wartime circumstances for eight years, staff, professors and students had to survive and operate in makeshift quarters that were subjected to sporadic bombing campaigns by the Imperial Japanese forces. There were dire shortages of food, equipment, books, clothing and other essential needs, but they managed to conduct the running of a modern university. Over those years of war (1937-1945), Lianda became famous nationwide for having and producing many of China's most prominent scientists and intellectuals, including the Nobel Prize laureates Yang Chen-Ning and Tsung-Dao Lee.

Aftermath

When the war ended with victory over the Japanese, the Lianda community, which had entered the war fiercely loyal to the government of Chiang Kai-shek, emerged in 1946 as a bastion of criticism of China’s ruling Kuomintang party. Within three years, the majority of the Lianda community had returned to their north China campuses in Beijing and Tianjin.

See also

References

  1. Tsinghua University History Research Office, 清华大学校史研究室 (1994). 《西南联合大学与清华大学(1937-1946)》,《清华大学史料选编》第三卷(下) (in Chinese). Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. ISBN 7-302-01375-6.
  • John Israel. Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution (1999) Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2929-8.
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