Jeffrey S. Lehman: a key contributor to China’s educational reform

Nurturing cosmopolitan talents

Having worked at the School of International Law of Peking University and NYU Shanghai, Mr. Lehman has a profound understanding of China’s higher education reform and innovation. “For the last 40 years, China has been on an interesting new developmental path to modernization. The idea has been to take Chinese tradition, Chinese civilization and to integrate it with the best of Western civilization. And part of that process of building this new developmental path has been the creation of these educational experiments: The Sino-foreign joint universities.”

(NYU Shanghai provides an international atmosphere for its students.[Photo/NYU Shanghai])

Established in 2012 as the first Sino-US joint university, NYU Shanghai is a result of cooperation between New York University and East China Normal University. Looking back on the past six years, Mr. Lehman spoke highly of the students and teachers who joined the new venture from the very beginning, describing them as "a wonderful group of pioneers."