Chang-Lin Tien, who as chancellor of UC Berkeley from 1990-97 was an outspoken supporter of equal opportunity in higher education and who preserved the campus's preeminence despite a prolonged state budget crisis, died Oct. 29 at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Redwood City. He was 67.
In September 2000, Tien was diagnosed with a brain tumor and suffered a debilitating stroke during a diagnostic test. He never regained his health and retired from his many duties on June 30, 2001.
One of the most popular and respected leaders in American higher education and an engineering scholar of international renown, Tien spent nearly his entire professional career at UC Berkeley. He was the campus's seventh chancellor and the first Asian American to head a major research university in the United States.
"Chang-Lin was an exceptional leader during one of UC Berkeley's most challenging periods, a time of severe budget cuts and political changes," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl. "His energy and optimism, his willingness to fight for the principles he cherished, and his loyalty and love for this campus made it stronger and better."
"Chang-Lin Tien's visionary leadership, outstanding scholarship, uncommon enthusiasm, and warm regard for his fellow human beings have made an everlasting mark on the Berkeley campus - and have secured for him a very special place in the long line of Berkeley chancellors," said UC President Richard Atkinson. "He has made an immeasurable contribution to the vitality and excellence of UC Berkeley and to the educational opportunities available to students throughout California."
- matter of excellence
Tien once said the most important fight he faced as UC Berkeley chancellor was in the early 1990s when, with California's economy lagging, state funding to the campus dropped $70 million, or 18 percent, within four years. During the same time period, 27 percent of active faculty members took advantage of incentives to retire early.
Tien personally recruited top young professors, dedicated himself to retaining prominent faculty members and presided over consecutive years of record private fund raising, vowing that UC Berkeley would stay on top.
"It's not a matter of whether we can survive," he said in 1993, asking the public to help spare the campus's dismantling by lobbying their legislators, "it's a matter of being excellent or mediocre."
To help reduce the impact of the state cuts on the university, Tien in 1996 launched an ambitious fundraising drive, the largest of its kind at the time for a public university. "The Promise of Berkeley - Campaign for the New Century" would support students and faculty members through scholarships, professorships, research funds and facilities. Encouraged by Tien to strengthen ties with its alumni and friends worldwide, the campus raised more than $975 million.
At a gala in April 2001 to celebrate the end of the campaign, which ultimately raised $1.44 billion, Berdahl announced that a new facility to house campus resources in East Asian studies, languages and cultures would bear Tien's name and be "a tribute to his enduring presence on this campus."
Creating an East Asian center at UC Berkeley was one of Tien's favorite campaign projects and reflected his roots in the region. Completing fundraising for the Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies is a continuing campus priority.
Bridge builder
Both in the United States and overseas, Tien's expertise - in thermal science and engineering, as an educator and humanitarian - was called upon by engineers, scholars and government officials alike.
In the field of thermal sciences, "he was a visionary. He marked out new high-impact areas, he did seminal work in those areas, and then he led everybody to the next area," said Richard Buckius, a former student of Tien's who is professor and head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Thermal radiation, thermal insulation and, most recently, microscale thermal phenomena, were among the fields carved out by Tien, the campus's first NEC Distinguished Professor of Engineering. He also made important contributions to fluid flow, phase-change energy transfer, heat pipes, reactor safety, cryogenics and fire phenomena. Both the United States and Hong Kong governments called upon Tien for technical advice. In the late 1970s, he helped solve problems with the Space Shuttle's insulating tiles and with the nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island.
In Hong Kong, he was chair of the Chief Executive's Commission on Innovation and Technology. The government there recently gave Tien its highest award, the Grand Bauhinia Medal, for service to the territory. In Japan, his basic formulas for "superinsulation" are used in the design of magnetic levitation trains.
In 1999, Tien received from the UC Regents the prestigious title of University Professor for his groundbreaking research and service to the university. The post allowed him to be a "professor-at-large" on all 10 UC campuses.
While chancellor, Tien also was an unofficial diplomat in Asia, meeting with heads of state including Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui. He helped found the Committee of 100, a non-partisan group of prominent Chinese Americans that promotes dialogue and understanding between the United States and China. Last year, the committee presented Tien with its Inspiration Award.
Rooted in integrity, justice
Tien was born on July 24, 1935, in Wuhan, China, and educated in Shanghai and Taiwan. With his family, he fled China's Communist regime for Taiwan in 1949. After completing his undergraduate education at National Taiwan University, Tien arrived penniless in the United States in 1956 to study at the University of Louisville. Supported by scholarships, he earned his master's degree there in 1957 and then a second master's degree and his PhD in mechanical engineering at Princeton University in 1959.
He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1959 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. In 1988, Tien left UC Berkeley when he was appointed executive vice chancellor at UC Irvine. He returned to UC Berkeley as chancellor in 1990.
Defender of affirmative action
In a 1996 essay in The New York Times, Tien made his case for the use of affirmative action in university admissions in direct opposition to the UC Regents' decision in 1995 to abolish its use.
Tien wrote that America had come a long way since the days of Jim Crow segregation, but that equal opportunity for everyone was not yet a reality. "It would be a tragedy if our nation's colleges and universities slipped backward now, denying access to talented but disadvantaged youth and eroding the diversity that helps to prepare leaders," he wrote.
In addition to successfully battling years of devastating state budget cuts on campus, Tien developed ways to counter the impact of the UC Regents' ban on affirmative action. In 1995, for example, he launched the Berkeley Pledge, a partnership between UC Berkeley and California's K-12 public schools that now is called School/University Partnerships. Designed to improve the academic performance of hundreds of students in the Berkeley, Oakland, West Contra Costa and San Francisco unified school districts, the program was a model for then-U.S. Secretary of Education Riley in creating a national program that today is active in almost every state in the country.
As chancellor, Tien was beloved as a champion of students. He was famous for his frequent strolls to Sproul Plaza to greet students, bringing cookies to those studying late in the library, and yelling a heartfelt "Go, Bears!" at events.
Tien raised the profile of women in leadership at UC Berkeley, appointing the first woman vice chancellor and provost - the second-in-command on campus - and the first woman chief of the campus police department.
Honors: from tankers to asteroids
On his long list of awards, Tien was the first recipient of the UC Presidential Medal. He also was given UC Berkeley's Clark Kerr Medal and the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal of the Berkeley Community Fund.
Tien held 12 honorary doctorates, including degrees from universities in China, Hong Kong, and Canada. One unique honor was when the Zi Jin Mountain Observatory in China named a newly discovered asteroid the "Tienchanglin." Also bearing his name is one of the world's largest oil tankers - Chevron Corp.'s M/T Chang-Lin Tien.
Tien was a consultant to many organizations, research laboratories and private companies and served on the boards of numerous firms, including Chevron, Kaiser Permanente and Wells Fargo Bank, as well as on the boards of the San Francisco Symphony and Princeton University. He authored more than 300 research journal and monograph articles, 16 edited volumes and one book. For all his academic successes, friends and colleagues said that Tien was devoted, above all, to his family.
Tien is survived by his wife, Di-Hwa, of Berkeley; a son, Norman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis; and daughters Phyllis, a physician at UC San Francisco; and Christine, the deputy city manager of Stockton.
The Tien family requests that donations be made to the Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies. Checks, payable to the UC Berkeley Foundation, may be sent to Vice Chancellor-University Relations, University Relations, 2440 Bancroft Way #4200, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-4200. For more information, see http://www.urel.berkeley.edu/tiencenter.