Old and new leaders, predecessors, colleagues, classmates and friends:
I would like to thank the university for giving me the opportunity to speak at today's celebration ceremony, because this year is the 30th anniversary of the name change of the university, which coincides with my 30 years of teaching in the university. In fact, there is another more important reason for my heart. In fact, there is another, more important reason that interests me. This year marks the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, and also marks the 40th anniversary of my life in Southeast University. I am the first generation of young people who are fortunate to have benefited from the reform and opening up, and the first generation of liberal arts students thanks to the rename of our university. For this reason, driven by Kantian absolute command, I feel a call of “absolute obligation”, representing the generation of that year and that month, as well as all people standing on the platform today, to offer a blessing to this 116-year-old life and 30-year-old youth: Hello, my university, our university!
Forty years ago, I, our generation of Southeast University, came into this famous engineering empire, which let tens of millions of young people only “dream and expect”. A school emblem attracts countless envy and longing in the street as it means youth and adoration. At that time, we did not understand philosophy and economics, and the professional books we read in the library were regarded as extraterrestrial visitors by deskmates. As I remember, Professor Huasheng, a famous economist and former classmate of the same year, published his paper entitled Should Practice the Profit Rate of Funds in the first issue of the Journal of Nanjing University in 1999, became our first academic show in the Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth grades. Thirty years ago, when I finished my undergraduate course and took pride in other schools and universities, my hometown on my graduate diploma was transformed from “Nanjing Institute of Technology” to “Southeast University”. One small step in life is one big step in Southeast University. This is a great feat accomplished by Southeast University under the leadership of President Wei Yu, and it has been a cultural journey since then to become one of the first-class universities in China. After graduation from university, only one class, in a few years, Huasheng was one of the earliest and most important intellectual think tanks in China at that time. Wang Xueqin became the chairman of All-China Students' Federation, and I became the youngest professor of philosophy and ethics in China at that time. Together with Professor Xu Kangning and Professor Li Xiaoxiang, I served as director and dean of the first liberal arts departments of Southeast University for 25 years or so, and was fortunate to participate in the magnificent course of the rise and uprising of the Southeast University in depth. It is not because we are excellent but because Southeast University has given us a strong gene to create miracles since its rise and the renaissance of the liberal arts. Southeast University has nurtured us, you and there are more people who are not present like stars. We have every reason to be proud of it!
Southeast University is my home, and your home! Yesterday's “Southern Tsinghua”, today's “China Southeast University” and tomorrow's “World Southeast University” are written with the aspirations, the heroism and the struggle of tens of millions of generations of Southeast University people. Today's beautiful Jiulonghu is really due to the sweat and hard work of Southeast University people. With the observation and experience of the five principals and the five party committee secretaries by me served as department chairman, dean and division chairman, Southeast University is simply the best “weight loss camp” for the principal secretary and principals of the university. As long as he/she sits on this throne, he/she will be slimmer and more elegant at once, whose hair will soon be grey as if he has traveled through the alchemy furnace of Lord Lao Zi and his outstandingbehavior is likethatofimmortals. When we were young and always thought that the old president, academician Wei Yu had superhuman wisdom and steel will, was young forever. Now, Academician Wei Yu's silver hair clearly counts to us all the hardships of the entrepreneurship at that time. At present, in the process of going to the world first-class university again, we have found that every kilogram of weight lost by academician Zhang Guangjun (the principal) means a big step forward by Southeast University. So, Southeast University’s brilliant future was woven from silver hair on his head and paved with the painstaking efforts of generations of Southeast University people.
Time flies, the sycamore trees of Sipailou Campus grow stubble after stubble and the lotus blossoms of Jiulonghu opened pool after pool. One by one, the leaders return to or keep watch on Southeast University. Generations of Southeast University have dedicated their youth, fame and lives, but left their health forever in their lifelong dedicated positions. Principal and academician Gu Guanqun with a strong will, and secretary Zhu Wanfu with a sense of humor passed away because of long-time tiredness soon after leaving office, leaving a respectable spirit. This is a heroic cause but also a solemn cause, constantly praising the story and legend of Southeast University to future generations.
Always talking about prestigious principals and secretaries, is not to praise their merits and virtues, but to represent them, and to make a collective memory of the development of the university through introduction (that is, to make a phenomenological tour of the spirit of the university using a philosophical discourse). At that time, we were in high spirits; today, our grey hair is elegant. Years let us cast a kind and endless jealous glance at the tide of youth in the hidden melancholy. Time is changing, life is changing, our university is changing, the only constant is an eternal heart from an eternal Southeast University person.
Have you ever remembered that almost all the top universities in China have offered me invitations in good faith, but in the end, I still choose Southeast University, not because the reason is not strong enough but that emotion is too fragile; not because the temptation is not rich enough but that there are too many thoughts and expectations. Every plant in Southeast University is engraved with our youth, our struggle and our memory. From the deep foot sockets left by the heavy snow in the severe winter of 1978 to the benches in the southeast courtyard where the melted paint adhered in the hot summer of 1979, they have been integrated into our blood.
Whenever we see Wenchangqiao dormitory area abandoned, generations on the playground where we leap to youth and our teachers who take children and grandchildren for a walk, a philosophical inquiry always comes to mind: why do we come to Southeast University, and why do we keep watch on Southeast University? If only because of its attractive treatment, are we too snobbish? If it's just because of its prestige, are we just a dandy boy under the shade of fame? Fate brings us to Southeast University and lets us be together with Southeast University, not only to share its glory, but to create its endless brilliance. Southeast University is not only the place where we make a living but also the home where we live. The highest realm and ideal we pursue is to “stop at the best good”, “constantly strive for self-improvement” and “carry things with great virtue”.
“There are so many beautiful rivers and mountains here that many heroes bow to it.” Looking back at history, we can only say, “Xiongguan Passage is really like iron, but now it is moving from the beginning to the end”. Looking forward to the future, strong engineering courses, superior science courses, excellent liberal courses and distinctive medicine courses are greatly potential and incomparably high-quality. A unique style of Southeast University is coming into being!
Tomorrow, Southeast University will be better!
