Honoring Chang-Lin Tien
June 22 event highlights contributions to research, teaching, campus life, society

Chang-Lin Tien Peg Skorpinski photo

05 June 2002 | For more than 40 years, Mechanical Engineering Professor Chang-Lin Tien, former chancellor of the Berkeley campus, has enriched the educational experience of the University of California while strengthening the University’s reputation around the globe.

On Saturday, June 22, friends and colleagues from around the world will gather at Bechtel Engineering Center for a day-long symposium marking Tien’s retirement from the university and honoring his research legacy and contributions to education and society.

His family, friends, colleagues, university administrators and members of the campus community, will attend. Tien, who underwent brain tumor surgery in September 2000 and is receiving home care, will not be able to attend the event.

Tien’s contributions to engineering research and teaching will be the focus of the morning.

An internationally recognized expert in heat transfer processes, Tien’s work has earned him many honors — including the Max Jakob Memorial Award, the highest international award in his field — while his teaching in that field earned him the campus’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Richard Buckius, head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will offer welcoming remarks; S.H. Chan, president of China’s Yuan Ze University, is also among the distinguished colleagues slated to speak.

The afternoon will be devoted to Tien’s contributions to the academy, community and world. As Berkeley’s chancellor from 1990 to 1997, Tien successfully led efforts to develop a more stable funding base for the university in the face of declining public support.

Throughout his academic career, he also lent his inexhaustible vision, drive and humanity to a wide range of partnerships between the education sector and its colleagues in government, business and the community.

Those paying tribute to Tien during the afternoon program will include Chancellor Berdahl; UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang; UC President Richard Atkinson and former President J.W. Peltason; Dan Mote, president of the University of Maryland and former Berkeley professor and vice chancellor; and the heads of the National Academy of Engineering, the Asia Foundation, and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

Gifts made in Tien’s honor on the occasion of the symposium will support construction of a new East Asian Library and Studies Center on the Berkeley campus.

Members of the campus community are invited to attend the symposium. To register, or to submit a tribute to Tien, see www.me.berkeley.edu/tien.