Most students in the National University of Singapore have likely read the monthly blog by their Provost, but they might be surprised to learn that it was recently shortlisted as one of the top ten provost blogs worldwide.
OnlineColleges.com published an article entitled ’10 Provost Blogs to Check Out’ in August this year which featured Professor Tan Eng Chye’s blog, ‘The NUS Provost Contemplates’; it was the only non-American entry on that list.
Prof. Tan was “pleasantly surprised” at that achievement, having only started the blog in October last year.
“First of all, I don’t think provosts blog a lot, because they are extremely busy people. The main reason [for me] really is to engage my students,” he explained. “Students are very tech-savvy these days; they use social media and other [such] platforms, so it makes sense for me to blog, as a means of engaging them.”
The professor’s desire to communicate with the student population stemmed from his role as the NUS Provost, a post which he rose to after taking on various positions of administrative leadership at both faculty and department levels during his 23 years in the university.
“In America, the president is the chief executive officer of a university, and the provost is the chief academic officer. So all the programs, undergraduate and graduate, and all the faculties come under the provost,” he said, “I oversee the deans and the faculties, and indirectly the students in all the faculties.”
Prof. Tan went on to elaborate that his job was to ensure the smooth functioning of all the faculties in the university and it helped to be aware of issues that concern current students.
“You want to raise issues which students can identify with and which impacts them. Other than talking to the students, I don’t regularly meet students; I may meet the student leaders but I don’t go down all the way [to the ground level],” he pointed out. “A blog allows me to directly reach them [as well as] hopefully, a different cross-section of students.”
Prof. Tan mentioned a post on the workings of the bell-curve as an example of a popular article, although he emphasized that he was careful to make sure the posts were “often enough, but not too often.” He added that he responded to all queries in the comments section, even if it took up more time to do so than the actual writing.
The professor was advised to start a Facebook page as well to further engage students, but stated that he would take his time to decide whether to do so as he cannot guarantee instantaneous feedback at this point in time.
“I’ll see how this evolves,” he said with a smile. “It’s kind of difficult and challenging for me to be very instantaneous with all the responses. A lot of these things, you need to have the background information [to address the concerns]—you have to be familiar with the policies [regarding that specific issue].”
Professor Wong Sek Man, the Vice-Dean of Science, feels that his colleague’s student-centric-ness is precisely what allows him to excel in his role.
“He takes care of students’ interests; anything that the students need, he will try to fulfill,” Prof. Wong said. “He’s easy to talk to, and one good thing about him is that you can disagree with him—I think very few leaders possess that kind of capacity.”
His blog administrator, Ms. Rachel Tan, painted the picture of a “sagacious leader” who always has students’ interests at heart, while also highlighting his capacity for retaining and analyzing facts, figures and information.
Having started his NUS academic career right after his PhD studies at Yale University, Professor Tan has handled countless problems during his time here. He admitted that the university’s latest concerns were over issues of tolerance and insensitivity, especially with students from over a hundred countries on campus.
Referring to the saga over the NUS scholar and Chinese national Sun Xu, who posted insensitive comments about Singaporeans on an online forum, he said: “I am seeing signs that people are less tolerant, especially our students. The worry is that these are our future leaders, and if they go away with this kind of [intolerant] mindset, it’s worrisome. The hope is that our undergraduates should be able to separate emotions from their thinking.”
Despite the many challenges encountered over managing a total of 40,000-odd staff members and students, Prof. Tan felt that his work is “challenging” and “enjoyable”.
When asked why, he simply replied: “Because you help to shape the university.”