On 24 December 2009, Prof. Johan De Graeve, President and Chief Executive of GROUP T – International University College, received an honorary doctorate from the State Council Academic Degrees Committee of China at the prestigious Beijing Jiaotong University, one of GROUP T’s first partner universities in China.
Prof. Wang Yongsheng, vice-President of Beijing Jiaotong University (BJTU), Prof. Johan De Graeve, President and Chief Executive of GROUP T and Prof. Chen Feng, Vice-President of BJTU.
This honorable title has been bestowed on him for his outstanding services in promoting intercultural relations between China and Belgium.
An honorable mention was also given for the establishment of the International Joint Engineering Programs in cooperation with an extensive network of Chinese partner universities. The same is true for founding the Hongzhi Engineering Scholarship that offers the opportunity to talented Chinese students from rural areas to study at GROUP T. The State Council also values Prof. De Graeve’s efforts to promote the Chinese language and culture as the Chairman of the Confucius Institute at GROUP T, the only one of its kind in Flanders. Incidentally, since 2006, the new honorary doctor has held the position of Senior Consultant at the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) and ‘since 2008, Vice-chairman of the Special Working Committee for Human Resources Promotion at the Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing.
Furthermore, the collaboration with an increasing number of partner universities in the Greater Mekong Subregion in Southeast Asia has played an important role. And finally, the committee greatly appreciates Prof. De Graeve’s work for UNESCO as the Co-Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair on Cooperation between Engineering, Education and Industries in Beijing and as the Vice-Chairman of the Flemish UNESCO Commission.
Academic presentations
The State Council praised the laureate for the development and implementation of innovative engineering curricula based on the 5 E-model of Environmenting, Ensembling, Enterprising, Educating and Engineering. This 5 E-model was also the main topic of Prof. De Graeve’s academic presentation. In this lecture he made useful suggestions to develop a strategy for educating the essence of engineering. Other key speakers during the ceremony were Prof. Ning Bin, President of Beijing Jiaotong University, Vice-President Chen Feng and Prof. Gu Mingyuan, PhD supervisor of Prof. De Graeve. The honorary doctorate certificate was awarded by Vice-President Wang Yongsheng, Chairman of the Academic Committee of Beijing Jiaotong University.
Big names
Since 1983, 203 honorary doctorates have been awarded at Chinese universities. Amongst these honorary doctors are Nobel prize winners such as Aage Niels Bohr (son of the well-known Danish physicist) and Klaus-Olaf von Klitzing (father of nanoelectronics). Also captains of industry like Bill Gates and Heinrich von Pierer, CEOs of Microsoft and Siemens respectively, are included on the list. Furthermore, a remarkable number of well-known presidents, government leaders and politicians are members of the select club: from Nelson Mandela, Giulio Andreotti, Kurt Schröder, Henry Kissinger and Jacques Santer to Jacques Chirac, George Bush (senior) and Boutros Boutros-Gali, sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Other notable names include the Chinese-American architect Ming Pei, designer of, among other structures, the glass pyramids on the inner courtyard of the Louvre in Paris, and MIT professor Noam Chomsky, founder of modern linguistics and human rights activist.
Belgians are few and far between in this select company. There are only two but they certainly count. Paul Janssen, founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, received his honorary doctorate in 1983 and Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, in 2006. From this year, our country has a third honorary doctor in its ranks in China.
Yves Persoons
