Tongji University has kicked off a series of activities to celebrate its 100th anniversary, scheduled for May 20, university officials said yesterday.

 

 

The celebrations started with a concert by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra at Tongji's Siping campus last night. They will also include university history exhibitions, academic conferences and international student exchange activities.

 

An international urban management conference and a forum of innovation and sustainable development are scheduled in May to invite renowned Tongji alumni, experts and mayors of other major Chinese cities to issue a declaration of a sustainable development society.

 

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Achim Steiner, vice secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the UN Environment Program will attend the event.

 

Tongji is also setting up a database for its alumni and has collected more than 400 articles about the university's history to build a university history museum, which is scheduled to open in March.

 

"The centennial celebrations are a milestone for Tongji to refresh its memory and look into the future," said Zhou Jialun, the university's chancellor.

 

Founded in 1907, Tongji was established by Erich Paulun, a German doctor, as the Tongji German Medical School. It changed its name to Tongji National University in 1927.

 

The university moved out of Shanghai and spent six years in Lizhuang, a small village in Yibing, Sichuan Province, during the war against Japanese troop's invasion from 1940 to 1946.

 

(Shanghai Daily January 6, 2007)