Chang-Lin Tien, UC Berkeley chancellor from 1990-97 and an internationally known engineering scholar died Tuesday, Oct. 29 at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Redwood City. He was 67 years oldIn 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.
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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.
In 1995, for the third straight decade, the National Research Council identified UC Berkeley as one of the premier research universities in the nation. Overall, 97 percent of the UC Berkeley graduate programs assessed in the survey made its Top 10 list.
Tien in 1996 launched an ambitious fund-raising 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 under his leadership. At a gala in April 2001 to celebrate the end of the campaign, which ultimately raised $1.44 billion, ,it was announced that a new facility to house campus resources in East Asian studies, languages and cultures would bear Tien's name as the Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies.
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 nonpartisan 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.
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 1962, when he was 26 years old, Tien became the youngest professor to receive UC Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award, an award for which he was enduringly proud. Rising through the ranks, he became a full professor in 1968, later served as chair for seven years of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and, for two years, 1983-85, was UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for research. In 1988, Tien left UC Berkeley -- for his first and only time -- when he was appointed executive vice chancellor at UC Irvine. He returned to UC Berkeley as chancellor in 1990.
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 was a naturalized U.S. citizen who said he was deeply grateful to be an American, but he also was proudly Chinese. When he became chancellor, he declined the suggestion from well-meaning supporters that he seek coaching to speak with less of an accent. On his office wall hung the Chinese character for crisis, but Tien explained how it actually represents two ideas - danger and opportunity. He said he preferred to see most crises as opportunitie
During his career, Tien's many honors included, in 1976, becoming one of the youngest members of the National Academy of Engineering, which awarded its highest honor to him, the NAE Founders Award, in September 2001. The award recognizes academy members who have made lifelong contributions to engineering and whose accomplishments have benefited U.S. citizens.
He also was elected a fellow of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), as well as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was an honorary professor of the 15 leading universities in China and an honorary research professor in the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Thermophysics.
On his long list of awards is the highest international award in heat transfer, the Max Jakob Memorial Award. He also won the Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award and the Heat Transfer Memorial Award of the ASME, the Thermophysics Award of the AIAA; the Thermal Engineering Award for International Activity of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers; the 1996 Fellowship Award of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer; the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement; and the Harvard Foundation Award from Harvard University.
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 "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.
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 the University of California, San Francisco; and Christine, the deputy city manager of Stockton. Tien also leaves four grandchildren. (UC Berkeley News, Oct. 30, 2002)