"I PREFER OTHERS CALL ME 'HEADMASTER QIAN'"

As famous scientist and educator, Qian Weichang had various political, administrative and professional titles. But "Headmaster Qian" was his favorite title.

"The president of a university is not an official post. Devoting yourself to the cause is the most important," he once said.

A native of Wuxi, eastern Jiangsu Province, Qian was professor, dean and vice president at Tsinghua University from 1946 to 1982.

He served as president of Shanghai University of Technology from 1983 to 1994, and president of Shanghai University (formerly Shanghai University of Technology) from 1994 to 2010.

Qian, the oldest university president in China, however, had been a "volunteer president" for the entire 27-year presidency as he got neither a penny nor an apartment from the university.

Since his presidency at Shanghai University, Qian had devoted himself to the reconstructing of the university and to the accomplishment of various reforms in higher education.

He took a variety of steps to establish a series of new effective systems in education including a credit system, elective system, and short school terms.

He also advocated open education by breaching barriers between universities and the society, boundaries between different disciplines, and "walls" between education and scientific research.

Dressing in a scarlet president's gown and supported by others, 93-year old Qian showed up at the Shanghai University's graduation ceremony in July 2005. This was the last time for him to be present at such occasion.

"You should be the first to worry about the affairs of the people and the last to enjoy yourselves," he spoke with a mumble to the graduates.

Qian attributed his success mainly to the hard work, citing repeatedly that he did not "believe in genius."

Recalling his earlier studies at Tsinghua University in the 1930s, Qian said he used to get up at five o'clock each morning to recite his physics textbooks.

But he admitted that he was not the most hardworking student at the university back then.

"I used to study together with Hua Luogeng, who would have finished his recitation before I got there," Qian said, citing the late Chinese mathematician who was noted for his pioneering research in mathematics.