Chinese Professor Arrested After Oral Dispute with Administrator

Lei Wu, an assistant professor at University of Houston-Clear City, was arrested after an oral dispute with Sharon White, program chair and associate professor.

Dr. Wu graduate from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) with a B.S. in Computer Science in 1994.

According to news report, the two had a work-related dispute, during which Dr. Wu said, '.. not good for either. There would be blood..' Dr. White interpreted the word 'blood' as a threat. However, without further information on context, it's very hard to link the word 'blood' to blood as blood in a body. In English, the word 'blood' has been used casually to refer to damage and cost on money, reputation, etc. You may read 'Motorola was bleeding ..' or 'the senate meeting last week was bloody. There was no winner out of the fiercy blaming on each other..' It may also mean anxiety, for example, 'this waste of time got my blood up'.

In 2010, a HUST alumnus Dr. Lishan Wang shot his colleague Vajinder Toor at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in New York.

Dr. White recorded the conversation. It is not clear whether Dr. Wu was aware of the recording. In Texas, recording needs 'one-party consent' only (Texas Penal Code, §16.02).

One commentator KateMullet posted at a highered news site: "If we're going to charge him for saying that, we need to charge a lot of elected reps and politicians and others. It is a common expression. An eye raising one. But a common expression, nevertheless."

Huazhong University of Science and Technology

It turned out the student who hit the Fang Bingxin with a shoe was from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) Wenhua College.

Huazhong University is one of the mega universities created after the Communists took power in mainland. HUST was funded in 1953, and strengthened through a series of mergers with other colleges and universities over years. Today, the school is home to more than 56,000 students. Since its inception, HUST consistently ranked top 10 universities on varies ranking and forums by all measurable criteria. However, few of its alum had climbed to top tier positions in academic or non-academic areas. While HUST has proud itself of providing mass amount of engineers who are essential for China's technology modernization, many mocked the school for producing excellent self-disciplined slave labor without brain.

Yesterday's incident is an evident that after so many years and hundreds of thousands of alums, some HUST graduates do have a brain capable of independent thinking along solid execution. It is an example of the transition from quantity to quality, which we expect to see more in China, and accidentally, it is the first in China.

HUST Made Chinese Literature a Mandatory Requirement for Graduation

Students of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, Hubei will have to pass a 'Chinese Literature Examination' before they receive their degree certificates, the school announced yesterday.

Students in China usually go through a cohort program in College, with load of 12 hours or more on any given day. Students in science and engineering programs has little time to pick up subject outside their fields. Some education scholars contributes the lack of innovations by Chinese to the absent of cultural and humanities in College students' curricula.

HUST was established in 1952. Like it's peers of many new schools set up after the government take over, HUST was designed and implemented as an engineering school. The school, however, tried to incorporate traditional science and humanity fields into its curricula. HUST has made itself an icon of modern China's higher education, and has been consistently ranked among Top Ten universities in China, with its engineering school convincingly sitting among Top Five.

An Interesting Ranking of World Research Universities

Wuhan University published a "2007 Ranking of World Universities on Research Competitiveness"

Rank	Institution	Country	Score
1	Harvard	US	100.00
2	University of Texas	US	87.49
3	University of Washington (Seattle)	US	72.39
8	University of Tokyo	Japan	69.19
11	University of Toronto	Canada	66.90
17	University of Cambridge	UK	62.93
18	University of Minnesota	US	62.80
45	University of Helsinki	Finland	49.54
47	University of Munich	Germany	48.92
53	University of Utrecht	Netherlands	48.40
58	Hebrew University Jerusalem	Israel	47.04
59	University of Lund	Sweden	47.00
60	Eth Zurich	Switzerland	46.95
71	University of Sydney	Australia	44.94
73	University of Milan	Italy	44.89
75	Seoul National University	South Korea	44.65
77	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands	44.60
83	University of Sao Paulo	Brazil	44.16
84	University Paris 6	France	44.08
92	University of Vienna	Austria	43.23
97	Catholic University Leuven	Belgium	42.37
99	University of Copenhagen	Denmark	42.04
100	Louisiana State University	US	41.88
101	Hokkaido University	Japan	41.63
116	National University of Singapore	Singapore	40.48
119	Moscow MV Lomonosov State University	Russia	40.28
125	University of Barcelona	Spain	39.86
135	National Taiwan University	China-Taiwan	38.90
146	University of Oslo	Norway	37.87
149	University of Hong Kong	China-Hong Kong	37.73
161	University Nacl Autonoma Mexico	Mexico	36.61
192	Beijing University	China	34.57
196	Tsinghua University	China	34.31
198	Chinese University Hong Kong	China-Hong Kong	34.30
200	American College of Cardiology	US	34.29
201	Indian Institute of Technology	India	34.26
233	University of Auckland	New Zealand	32.06
248	Zhejiang University	China	31.03
252	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China	30.67
257	Fudan University	China	30.45
271	Nanjing University	China	29.87
273	University of Science & Technology of China	China	29.86
286	Hong Kong University of Science & Technology	China-Hong Kong	29.16
288	University of Buenos Aires	Argentina	29.05
295	National Cheng Kung University	China-Taiwan	28.56
300	University of Houston	US	28.38
301	University of Toulouse 3	France	28.38
307	University of Warsaw	Poland	27.80
308	University of Athens	Greece	27.68
320	City University of Hong Kong	China-Hong Kong	27.20
353	University of Cape Town	South Africa	25.78
357	University of Chile	Chile	25.61
367	Hong Kong Polytech University	China-Hong Kong	25.15
382	Jilin University	China	24.29
387	National Tsinghua University	China-Taiwan	24.16
393	National Chiao Tung University	China-Taiwan	23.82
398	University Ljubljana	Yugoslavia	23.60
400	University of Bremen	Germany	23.49
401	Shandong University	China	23.45
404	Tianjin University	China	23.29
408	Nankai University	China	23.23
413	Sun Yet-sen University	China	23.03
416	Wuhan University	China	23.00
422	Sichuan University	China	22.78
439	Huazhong University of Science & Technology	China	22.40
451	National University of Ireland University College Cork	Ireland	21.83
452	Lorand Eotvos University	Hungary	21.80
456	Hacettepe University	Turkey	21.63
467	University of Zagreb	Czech Republic	21.27
470	National Central University	China-Taiwan	21.13
483	Xi'an Jiao Tong University	China	20.63
486	Harbin Institute of Technology	China	20.50
494	Lanzhou University	China	20.42
498	University of Alaska	US	20.26
499	University Instelling Antwerp	Belgium	20.25
500	James Cook University North Queensland	Australia	20.24

The distinctive feature of this ranking, in many ways sharply different than man other existing rankings, is the fact that it weighs objective measurements （such as patents or cited papers) only. For example, there's no weight for peer reputation or amount of endowment. Consequently, this ranking does not award a school for its traditional heritage or cultural impact. It reflects more ongoing active research rather than a school's potential capacity.

Using publications as the dominant factor makes this ranking favors schools that are strong in humanities and natural sciences, where people tends to publish more. This is not surprising given that the sponsoring agency, Wuhan University, belongs to this category.

HUST Team A Meritorious Winner in MCM/ICM 2007

A group of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) students: Lan Fojun (Mechanics 2004), Zhang Quanquan (Management 2004) and Lian Kunlei (Mechanics 2005) coached by Professor Gao Liang received meritorious winner status.

MCM (The Mathematical Contest in Modeling) and ICM (Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling) are international collegiate competitions sponsored by the SIAM and COMAP since 1985. In the year 2007, 949 teams participated in the contest. Among the 7 teams sent by the HUST, one meritorious winner, two honorable mentions and three successful participants were brought home.

More information of MCM/ICM 2007 including complete list of winners can be found at the COMAP site.