The Making of the Singapore Management University
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Singapore Management University Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Oral History Collection University Heritage 1-2-2015 Daringly Different: The akM ing of the Singapore Management University Kevin Y. L. TAN Follow this and additional works at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/smu_oh Part of the Asian Studies Commons, Business Commons, and the Higher Education Commons Citation Tan, Kevin Y. L. 2015. Daringly Different: The akM ing of the Singapore Management University. Singapore: Singapore Management University. ISBN 9789810940447. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the University Heritage at Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oral History Collection by an authorized administrator of Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. For more information, please email [email protected]. Daring LY Differen T : T The establishment of the Singapore Management University he (SMU) in 2000 represented a major departure from established systems and models of tertiary institutions in Singapore. The vi- M sion for this university – largely the brainchild of former Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan – was born out of a frustration with the a established state-operated university system and was designed to K answer the challenges of modern tertiary education in Singapore. ing of Privately-run and publicly-funded, the Singapore Management University provided a new model of tertiary education that pushed The Making of the its students to speak up, challenge orthodoxy and be active learn- ers. More importantly, it acted as a major catalyst for the transfor- Singapore Management University mation of Singapore’s tertiary education system. This book details the events leading up to the University’s formation and charts the SMU first 15 years of its growth. KEVIN YL TAN is a leading scholar of Singapore’s constitution and legal Kevin YL Tan history. A graduate of the Law Faculty of the National University of Singapore and of the Yale Law School, he divides his time between teaching, writing and consultancy. He has written and edited over 30 books on the law, history and politics of Singapore and is currently Adjunct Professor at both the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, and the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nan- yang Technological University. DARINGLY DIFFERENT THE MAKING OF THE SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY Kevin YL Tan © Singapore Management University, 2015 This publication was authored by SMU’s Writer-in-Residence Dr Kevin YL Tan. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. No responsibility for the loss occasioned to any per- son acting or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the author or publisher. First published by Singapore Management University 81 Victoria Street Singapore 188065 ISBN: 978-981-09-4044-7 (paperback) Concept, design and layout by Kevin YL Tan Typeset in Garth Graphic 10.5/12.6 pts Cover Design: Kevin YL Tan Cover Photograph: The Li Ka Shing Library, SMU, by Hong Huazheng All images are from the collection of the Singapore Management University or otherwise in the public domain Printed by Oxford Graphic Printers Pte Ltd Contents Preface .......................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ..................................................................... vii 1 University Education in Singapore: A Historical Background 1905–1991 .............................................. 1 2 The Changing Landscape of Tertiary Education and the Emergence of SMU .................................................................31 3 Ideas Evolve: The SMU Emerges ................................................. 53 4 Tertiary Trailblazer .......................................................................91 5 Daringly Different ......................................................................121 6 Growing the Schools ...................................................................153 7 The First Fifteen Years ................................................................199 List of SMU Key Office Bearers ..................................................237 iii iv Preface his is a book about the founding and early years of Asia’s first university in the 21st century — the Singapore TManagement University or SMU. When I was approached to write this book, I was at first concerned that SMU wanted a celebratory coffee-table style book with plenty of nice, evocative photographs and content that bordered on the hagiographic. I am glad I was wrong. No, I was told that I should write an honest academic book about what I thought were the most important and exciting aspects of the founding narrative. This should be as much my book as it is SMU’s. Difficult as it may be to seriously write a ‘history’ of an institution that is only 15 years old, I have nonetheless approached the topic historically, or at least chronologically. I start by providing a background to tertiary education in Singapore to set the scene and offer the reader a glimpse of the landscape in which the remarkable changes leading to SMU’s establishment, and ramifications flowing therefrom, took place. One friendly business professor, who read an early draft told me that I provide too much of a historical background and that what now appears as Chapter 1 could easily be summarised in a page and that I should ‘simply get on with the SMU story’. Sure, that would be one way to write a book of this sort, but it would fail to situate SMU and the significance of its establishment within the much wider national and international milieu. But for those of you who are impatient to ‘get on with it’, I have made Chapter 1 self- contained, and you can happily breeze through to Chapter 2 without losing the plot. I do not intend to summarise the rest of the book in this preface. I believe it is sufficiently succinct, and yes, I have included some photographs to enliven the narrative. I have been most fortunate in that so many of the key actors who were intimately connected to this grand story are still around and actively engaged in the life of SMU, and thus benefitted greatly from first-hand interviews with a number of them. I was also blessed in having total access to the groundbreaking series of interviews commissioned by the Li Ka Shing Library and mostly conducted by Pat Meyer under its Conceptualising SMU oral history project. Indeed, SMU has made v this incredibly rich and useful archive available to the public on its website: <http://oralhistory.smu.edu.sg>. Because this resource was so rich and idiomatic, I have, as much as possible, allowed the key actors to tell SMU’s story in their own voices. While oral history interviews are wonderful sources of facts and events, memories are faulty and perspectives are often coloured by the effluxion of time. In using these sources, I have been careful to triangulate the facts and seek out corroborative evidence from other sources to complete the story. This is not a definitive history of SMU’s first 15 years but rather a snapshot of how it came to be established, how it was built, and how it has impacted Singapore’s educational landscape. A definitive history — if such an enterprise were possible — would require the historian unfettered access to the working files of the University as well as to high-level confidential documents, such as Cabinet papers. That history will need to be written some time in the future, but that time is not now. I only hope that given the limits of what was possible, I have been able to share with you that exciting, daring journey which SMU’s pioneers undertook in creating an institution that stood convention on its head and which committed itself to educating a different kind of Singapore student. Kevin YL Tan January 2015 vi Acknowledgements book of this scope cannot be written without the help of a great many individuals. My first thanks goes to two Aremarkable ladies, Gulcin Cribb and Tan Siok Sun, who placed great faith on my producing a book worthy of SMU. Gulcin’s staff at the Li Ka Shing Library have also been tremendously helpful, and I am grateful for the help given me by Yeo Pin Pin, Francia Borres Bontuyan, Sumita Govindan, Devika Sangaram, and Paolina Martin. I am also extremely grateful to the following SMU academic staff — past and present — who consented to being interviewed or who provided me with information and anecdotes in conversation or email (in alphabetical order): Cham Tao Soon, David Chan, Arnoud De Meyer, Robert Deng, Ho Kwon Ping, Howard Hunter, Kirpal Singh, Low Aik Meng, Low Kee Yang, Steven Miller, Ong Siow Heng, Pang Eng Fong, Phang Sock Yong, Rajendra Srivastava, Tan Chin Tiong, Eugene Tan, Sharon Tan, Tan Swee Liang, James Tang, Howard Thomas, Ted Tschang, Tsui Kai Chong and Philip Zerillo. Through various other faculty, I have had the opportunity to sit in and experience the much- vaunted SMU classroom environment first hand. A special thanks goes out to Tan Chin Tiong, Pang Yang Hoong and Paul Evans for closely reading earlier drafts of the manuscript and offering various suggestions for improvement. I would also like to specially thank Pat Meyer who cast an eagle eye over the text and picked up many an error that escaped my eye. Finally, this book would not be possible without the generosity of the following sponsors: Edmund Lin and Triana Liang, Robert Tomlin, Dilhan Sandrasegara Pillay, Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited, Paul Beh, Anil Thadani, Saw Phaik Hwa, Arnoud De Meyer, and Timothy Chia. Kevin YL Tan vii Chapter 1 University Education in Singapore: A Historical Background 1905–1991 INTRODUCTION The oldest universities in the world are to be found in Europe. Of the surviving universities, at least forty of them were founded before 1500. The oldest — the University of Bologna in Italy — has been in continuous operation since the year 1088.