We are delighted to share the texts of commencement addresses delivered by speakers during the 2020 graduation ceremonies. For a photo gallery commemorating the festivities, click here. To read GBJ co-director Rick Dunham's commencement speech, click here.
REMARKS BY DR. HANG MIN,
CO-DIRECTOR, GLOBAL BUSINESS JOURNALISM PROGAM
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, TSINGHUA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION
GLOBAL BUSINESS JOURNALISM COMMENCEMENT
JUNE 21, 2020
My fellow faculty members, dear students: Good morning!
Time fies. Two years have passed since you joined the GBJ class 2018. Today, we are gathering here to celebrate, both on site and remotely, your successful completion of study at Tsinghua!
First of all, let me on behalf of the school faculty to send you our sincere congratulations. I would also like to thank all those who have helped our GBJers to achieve the academic success.
2020 is an unusual year. The world is faced with unprecedented uncertainties. For our GBJers, a number of major challenges are here in position either in terms of your physical and mental responses or of your career choice upon graduation. We usually use a word “weiji” (“危机”) in Chinese to connotate that challenges come concurrently with opportunities. Therefore, I would like to share with you briefly on how to seize opportunities and address challenges by using the three letters represent GBJ.
The first letter is G, standing for “Global.” GBJ is a program that is genuinely international. It has embraced students from more 60 different countries over the past years. Diverse background and multi-cultural perspectives constitute the distinct feature of the program. Immersed in such an environment, our GBJers are embedded with a global mindset. With challenges brought by the coronavirus, some argue that globalization has entered a period of stagnation. However, even during the pandemic, we see increasing free flow of information, extended level of knowledge sharing, and joint efforts of the people from different nations to fight against the virus. In this vein, globalization is still an irresistible trend. It’s no doubt that our GBJers have unique advantages with global knowledge and experiences, and I hope that you will be the future ambassadors, connecting China with the world.
The second letter is B for “Business.” Business is our focus of learning in this program. As the second largest economy in the world, China boasts of its market-oriented economic policy and rapid development, which have attracted worldwide attention. We need trained professionals to observe China’s economy, to tell the Chinese stories of economic development, and to promote mutual understanding of the economic sophistication. It surely provides opportunities for you, our GBJers, who have been trained theoretically and practically to serve the economic society.
The third is J for “Journalism.” Not long ago, the annual Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum was organized online, and we attained great success with over 400,000 viewers and over 20,000 thumbs-ups in the social media platform. It was proved that increasingly close attention from the public has been paid to business journalism. While facing uncertainties brought by the coronavirus pandemic, people need high-quality journalistic work to tell them the truth, provide them with analytical views and help them to build up confidence. Our GBJers are the best candidates to meet these needs and to seize such opportunities. In this connection, I hope that all of you will never give up journalistic professionalism in the future. No matter what you are going to do, the journalistic skillset you get here will surely be your unique competence to safeguard your future success.
In conclusion, let me summarize the three key points I’d like to share with you:
Be global-minded;
Focus on business; and
Maintain journalistic professionalism to build your future success.
So, finally, I would like to say congratulations again. I wish many blessings and good fortune be yours in all the years to come.
Thank you!