First, I want to express my congratulations to Dr. Xiao. It has been his dream to build a liberal arts college in China. Liberal arts education prepares students to be critical thinkers with an analytic mind and a global perspective.

Many great leaders in the world have a liberal arts education, including many famous entrepreneurs in China and other countries. They are in many fields, including government, business, science, education, or civil organizations.

Arete is dedicated to preparing our students for both academic and career success. A unique focus of Arete is that we train our students to be global minded with a strong Chinese identity.

With Dr. Xiao’s persistence and commitment, I am sure Arete will become one of the best institutions of higher education in preparing students to be great leaders for the Chinese society and beyond.  

Second, I want to congratulate the parents for your wisdom in allowing your children to participate in this 1+3 program for a liberal arts education. Like some of you, I am a parent of a single child. I want my daughter, whom I adopted from an orphanage in Shanghai, to have the best preparation for life. I know the value of a liberal arts education. Therefore, I encouraged my daughter to study in a liberal arts college. She also was in a 1+3 program.

Actually, this is my background as well. I studied in a community college in Hong Kong and then finished my liberal arts degree in a US university. I went on to get a master’s degree and a PhD. I am very fortunate to have a good career as a university professor and researcher.  

I want to mention one person who I admire, whom many of you know, and who also had a liberal arts foundation. This is Prof. Zhang Weiying, a famous economist in China. He studied political economy at the Northwestern University in China, and his son Luke studied philosophy and economics in the London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Both are liberal arts degrees.

Prof. Zhang returned to China after obtaining his PhD from Oxford University. He offered many influential ideas about the economic reform in China and explained why and how the Chinese private sector is and can be the most important growth engine and wealth creator for the Chinese people.

His newest book titled “Ideas for China’s Future” is another masterpiece. In it, he suggested that China’s future is determined by having strong leaders with right ideas. We are very fortunate that Prof. Zhang is giving a speech to us today. I look forward to his message.

Now, I would like to say a few words to the students. My message to you, dear students, can be captured in a word that is made up of four letters C A R E. If nothing else, I hope you will remember at least the word CARE from my speech. Each letter relates to one value that is important to Arete College.

Arete wants to help you to become strong leaders who have courage. We want you to have the courage to think big ideas, the courage to to offer new ideas that are different from popular thoughts, the courage to speak up about things that are wrong, and the courage to take actions to promote justice. To have the courage to care for justice is connected with Arete’s core value of “致良知”.

I am sure all of you already have high aspirations, but aspiration for what? Is it for finding a good paying job, or a job with meaningful work? Is it for becoming famous in your field of expertise, or is it to become wealthy so that you can give your parents a good life, as good sons and daughters do? All of these are good aspirations. I would suggest that you consider one more, and that is the aspiration to pursue and protect truth which is Arete’s second core value “求真理“.

Pursuit of truth means to know the difference between facts and opinions, between true news and fake news, between honesty and falsehood. It also means to listen to different opinions and be open minded about different perspectives. Truth is not the monopoly of those who have money, power, or influence. Let me use an example. How would you explain the extremely large difference in wealth between people in China today? Economists, philosophers, government leaders, entrepreneurs, workers, and students may give different answers. Whose answer is the true answer? A liberal arts education helps you to develop an analytical mind to understand why there are different answers to a question and what truth means when reality differs for different people. This is what we mean by 求真理.  

Your first Responsibility is to be the best student you can be and be responsible for your own learning. However, you cannot succeed by being responsible for yourself only. You and we are part of a community. We must take the responsibility for the growth, the development, and the well-being of our community. This is the third value of Arete College “服务社会“

There are many communities or societies to which each of us belong, including school, family, social clubs, our hometown, the city we live in, our nation, and the world. No person is an island. We need the company and support of others in order to thrive. Taking care of our community is essentially taking care of ourselves. A strong community is good for every member in it.

There is this great book with the title “The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone”. The authors provided robust evidence that citizens in societies with more economic equality enjoy better physical and mental health, there is less crime, more trust, more social mobility, and people live longer. This book shows that taking care of our community (i.e., others) is actually taking of ourselves.

Arete College emphasizes a community spirit. Students, i.e., YOU, will be organized into support groups. It is an excellent way to learn how to contribute to your community.

I have now introduced three of the four letters in the word CARE. Courage to care  致良知; Aspiration for truth 求真理; Responsibility for both self and community 服务社会.

Now I come to the last letter in the word CARE, E, representing the word Excellence. The word Arete in Greek means excellence.

Excellence is embedded in the motto of Arete College “致广大而尽精微，极高明而道中庸“. To me, this motto means achieving excellence by both pursuing bold ideas and striving for perfection in details, by attaining great wisdom while keeping moderation.

In other words, your great wisdom must be tempered by a sense of humility. I offer this proverb to help us understand the second phrase in the school motto “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” In other words, we want you to achieve excellence in life, but we also want you to be humble about your success.

My message so far has focused on your learning and career. It would be incomplete without a few words about your social life. My advice is to make many friends during your college years, friends with whom you share good times and support each other during difficult times. Many successful people form lifelong friendships during their undergraduate years.

In conclusion, I am very excited to be a witness to the first day of your university life. Through your liberal arts education, you will find the world to be a truly beautiful place, as the paintings on the slides show. For sure, the world is far from perfect today, but I am confident that Arete students will help to make the world an even more beautiful place, because you CARE.

Congratulations again, my dear founding class of Arete College!

【About the author】

Professor Anne S. Tsui, a well-known management scientist and former president of the American Management Association.