Edit: La Yan Peach
Recently, the North American academic community has come to two big melons. One is the University of Michigan ushering in the first Asian-American president, and the other is the first female president of Northwestern University to leave office on the first day of office.
The melon of academia is here again.
Professor Chen Yiran of Duke University broke two big news about the North American academic community, which attracted a wave of discussion among netizens.
One is that Santa J. Ono will become the 15th president of the University of Michigan, the first Asian-American president in the university's history.
The other was The first female president of Northwestern University, Rebecca Blank, announced her resignation on her first day in office.
Let's take a closer look.
Mita welcomed the first Asian-American principal
Since its establishment in 1817, the university has a history of 205 years.
Dr. Ono also became the first Asian-American president in the history of michigan university and will take over the position of the previous president, Mark S. Schlissel.
Schlissel was fired in January for having an improper relationship with a subordinate.
According to reports, Dr. Ono will take office on October 13, with a five-year term and a basic salary of $975,000 (about 6 million yuan).
Dr. Ono, 59, is a biomedical researcher known for his leadership in college tuition affordability and action to combat climate change.
Currently, he serves as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia.
In times higher education's impact rankings over the past 4 years, UBC is ranked as one of the top 7 universities in the world.
UBC was able to receive this honor thanks to Ono.
Ono grew up in the Shuxiang Mendi family.
He was born in Vancouver to Japanese immigrant parents and grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
His father, Takashi Ono, a well-known Japanese mathematician, left Japan after World War II and taught at UBC in the 1960s.
His older brother is a well-known musician, and his younger brother is a well-known mathematician in Scientific American magazine.
Ono has been an uncompromising academic since childhood, and received a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from the University of Chicago in 1984. He received his Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine from McGill University in Montreal (Canada) in 1991.
He has also taught at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, and University College London.
During his tenure at the University of Cincinnati, he also served as a professor of pediatrics at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Probably influenced by his older brother, Dr. Ono is also an avid music lover.
He studied at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore City and still finds time to play the cello and even perform on stage.
As recently as July 14, he posted on social media about the famous British conductor and composer Bramwell Tovey.
Come and enjoy his performance, it is simply a musician who has been delayed by education.
It is worth mentioning that Dr. Ono is also a Chinese son-in-law.
His wife, Wendy Yip, is of Chinese descent and trained in immunology at McGill University and has worked as a lawyer at Boston University.
Wendy Yip's father was Gar Lam Yip, a Chinese-American scientist known as the "Father of Optical Fiber in Canada."
Her mother was Alice Chan-Yip, a pediatrician in Montreal, who was also well known in the region and had been awarded the Order of Canada.
They met while attending McGill University in Canada and have two daughters, Sarah and Juliana.
Ono's name (Santa J. Ono) is also a terrier.
As you can see, there is a Santa in the English name, so he is always called "Brother Christmas".
He once said the name was given by his father after the Japanese folk tale character Santaro.
Currently, Dr. Ono is less than 3 months away from his appointment.
The University of Michigan, one of the top public universities in the United States, received a record 84,000 applications this fall.
However, Ono will now take power during a controversial and difficult college campus. The campus is divided by cultural wars and debates about the cost of college.
The first female president of Northwestern University
Another thing is that Rebecca Blank, the first female president of Northwestern University, resigned after just one day of work.
The reason is that you have cancer and you must follow your doctor's advice to reduce the intensity of your work.
On July 11, Rebecca said in the Northwestern University community that she had just been diagnosed with cancer. In the diagnosis given by the doctor, the word "aggressive cancer" is used.
She said that because of this sudden change, she will not be able to continue to fulfill her duties as the 17th president of Northwestern University. She will focus on her body and family for some time to come.
"I can't express my disappointment and sadness at this moment. I am thrilled to join Northwestern, which I see as a world-class educational and research institution. The school has outstanding leadership, excellent faculty and a group of motivated students."
Remember, in May of this year, Rebecca just finished her nine-year tenure as president at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After resigning from Northwestern, she and her husband will return to the Madison area for cancer treatment.
Speaking of Rebecca, it's a workaholic.
During his tenure as president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2013, Rebecca has been committed to advancing research and innovation at the institution, emphasizing the university's role in fostering entrepreneurship and driving economic development.
She has also facilitated the hiring of interdisciplinary faculty in support of research careers at the University of Washington.
During her time at the University of Wisconsin, Rebecca has been advocating for expanded enrollment opportunities, particularly through the Bucky Tuition Pledge, which guarantees four years of free tuition for Wisconsin resident students with a gross family income of less than $60,000.
The relationship between Rebecca and Northwestern University has long been traced.
From 1989 to 1999, she taught at Northwestern University's Department of Economics and also served as Director of the Joint Center for Poverty Studies and Co-Director of the Northwestern/University of Chicago Interdisciplinary Training Program on Poverty, Race, and Underlying Social Issues.
As a distinguished economist, Blank focuses on the interplay between the labor market, individual behavior, government policy, and macroeconomics. She has published extensively on issues of poverty, low-income workers, and inequality.
After joining Northwestern, Blank served as the inaugural dean of the Gerald-R-Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan (Joan and Sanford Weill), where she also taught economics. She also taught at Princeton University for a time.
In this way, the educational experience + research experience Rebecca is full.
Not only is she famous in academic circles, she also has a place in politics.
She has served in three presidential administrations, most recently as acting secretary of commerce and deputy secretary of commerce during the Obama era.
She was also a member of the Clinton-era Economic Advisory Board, a Bush-era senior staff economist, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy research think tank in Washington, D.C.
Such an outstanding talent has just become the president of Northwest University, and he left his job due to illness, which is not a pity.
I believe that Rebecca will be able to recover smoothly
Resources:
https://m.weibo.cn/2199733231/4791818494153196
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/university-of-michigan-president.html
https://news.umich.edu/zh-hans/santa-j-ono/