Shanghai University Yanchang Campus: one school gate, three identities

Basic facts

This piece has to make one thing clear first: "Daning Campus" is not its formal name; the formal name is Yanchang Campus. It is called "Daning" because it stands beside Daning Lingshi Park and the Circus City.

First, tell the three "Shanghai Universities" apart

To talk about this campus one must first lay out three things that are easily confused:

One key point: the "former Shanghai University" of the 1994 merger is the one set up in 1983, not the one on Qingyun Road in 1922.

The new Shanghai University's account of its own history reaches back to 1922 ("a red seat of learning, rising at Qingyun"), but that is a succession in spirit — the site, the teaching staff and the blood line are not one line.

So: the ground of Yanchang Campus has no geographical connection with the old Shanghai University of 1922. The old university was on Qingyun Road, Yanchang Campus is on Yanchang Road, several kilometres apart.

1960: the Shanghai Institute of Technology

The first school on the ground at No. 149 Yanchang Road was the Shanghai Institute of Technology, founded in 1960.

Why found an engineering institute in 1960? Because Shanghai wanted to industrialise.

In the late 1950s Shanghai was defined as an industrial base and needed engineers in great numbers. The universities of the time were not enough, so districts and departments ran their own colleges — that is where the Shanghai Institute of Technology came from, with its site on Yanchang Road in Zhabei, near the Pengpu industrial area.

In 1972 the school was once abolished and merged into the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering. In 1979 it was restored and formally named Shanghai University of Technology, becoming a municipal key university.

Those nineteen years were the school's most crucial period of growth.

1983: Qian Weichang comes as president

In 1983 a great scientist came to be president: Qian Weichang.

Qian Weichang (1912–2010) was one of the founders of modern mechanics in China, and a number of the founding figures of the "two bombs, one satellite" programme were his pupils or colleagues. He was labelled a "rightist" in 1957 and could not work normally for the twenty years after that. In 1983, at seventy-one, he came to Shanghai University of Technology as president.

In that post he did three things:

"Striving unceasingly" carries a special weight for Qian Weichang himself — a man wrongly labelled a rightist for twenty years wrote those four characters into a motto.

Old alumni remember one thing: President Qian often walked about the campus, and students met him on the road again and again. A university president you could run into anywhere on campus — that is almost impossible today.

27 May 1994: four schools into one

On 27 May 1994 Shanghai carried out a large merger of higher institutions:

The four merged to form the new Shanghai University.

The founding meeting was held in the Friendship Hall of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, and Qian Weichang, together with the then mayor of Shanghai Huang Ju, unveiled the nameplate of Shanghai University. Jiang Zemin wrote out the name of the university, and Li Peng wrote the inscription "carry forward the glorious tradition, train talent for the new century".

After the merger: the Baoshan campus (No. 99 Shangda Road) became the main campus, No. 149 Yanchang Road became "Yanchang Campus", with the Jiading Campus and the Xinzha Road Campus alongside.

The name Shanghai University of Technology never appeared on its own again.

Fair-faced red brick

What is easiest to remember about Yanchang Campus is its buildings.

A group of 1960s fair-faced red brick teaching buildings survives; the brick is not rendered, the joints are pointed very fine, and in sunlight it is one warm red.

This was standard practice for Shanghai's engineering colleges in that era: the brick was fired locally, cheap, strong and in no need of ornament. Fifty years on, this "unornamented" building has become the most recognisable thing of all.

Walk into Yanchang Campus now and you can still see what a "university of the eighties and nineties" looked like: big trees, lawns, red-brick buildings, a sports ground. No glass curtain walls, no library of exaggerated shape.

Many old alumni come back, and what they recognise is exactly this spread of red brick.

A campus, and the place around it

Yanchang Campus is at No. 149 Yanchang Road, in the busiest stretch of northern Zhabei (today's Jing'an):

• not far to the east is Shanghai Circus World;
• beside it is Daning Lingshi Park;
• further north is Pengpu Xincun.

That is why it is called "Daning Campus" — not an official name but a geographical one: people who live nearby say "the Shangda campus at Daning", which comes more easily than "Yanchang Campus".

The nickname itself says one thing: a university's presence is often established through the place names around it. Students say "I am at Daning", residents say "that university is here where we live", and in time the campus has two names.

Three identities on this ground

To draw the piece together:

One school gate, three identities.

The ground has not changed and the red brick has not changed; what changed is the lettering on the board. In Zhabei, this business of "one piece of ground changing tenants several times" is commonest among schools.

Connections

• Sub-district：Daning Road Subdistrict
• See also：Daning Road Subdistrict, The Former Site of Shanghai University, Daning Lingshi Park, Shanghai Circus World, Shibei Middle School

Sources: that Shanghai University was formed on 27 May 1994 by the merger of Shanghai University of Technology (founded 1960), Shanghai University of Science and Technology (founded 1958), the former Shanghai University (founded 1983) and Shanghai College of Science and Technology (founded 1959); that its legal domicile is No. 99 Shangda Road and that it has three campuses, Baoshan, Yanchang (No. 149 Yanchang Road) and Jiading, with Baoshan the main campus, is based on the Statutes of Shanghai University (2015, approved by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission); that Shanghai University of Technology grew out of the Shanghai Institute of Technology founded in 1960, was briefly abolished in 1972 and merged into the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering, and was restored under its new name in 1979, with its site at No. 149 Yanchang Road in Zhabei District, today's Shanghai University Yanchang Campus, whose grounds keep the old fair-faced red brick buildings; and that the academician Qian Weichang became president in 1983 and that the motto "striving unceasingly" was carried forward in this period, are based on I Went to University in the Eighties: Shanghai University (2), the Former Shanghai University of Technology from the Shanghai Audio-Visual Archives and the report of the same title on Kankan News (Grade B); that the founding meeting of 27 May 1994 was held in the Friendship Hall of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, that Qian Weichang and the then mayor of Shanghai Huang Ju unveiled the nameplate of Shanghai University, and that Jiang Zemin wrote the name of the university and Li Peng the inscription, are based on 27 May: Through Time to Embrace You, Our Shanghai University on the People's Daily client (Grade B); that the old Shanghai University was founded on 23 October 1922 in Qingyun Lane, Qingyun Road, Zhabei, and that its Jiangwan buildings were closed down in May 1927, is also recorded in the same article on the People's Daily client and in this book's piece on the former site of Shanghai University; "Daning Campus" is a popular name, not a formal campus name listed in the Statutes of Shanghai University, and is recorded here alongside the formal one. See Appendix 4 for the full bibliography.