When it comes to history, Professor Tan Tai Yong is on home ground. Prof Tan obtained his PhD in South Asian History from Cambridge University in 1992. In his 35 years of distinguished service at the National University of Singapore (NUS), he has worn many hats, ranging from a Professor of History at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences to Head of History Department and subsequently the Dean of the Faculty. He was also Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies, an autonomous university-level research institute in NUS. In 2016, he was appointed to the Singapore Social Sciences Research Council and was also a member of the Singapore Bicentennial Advisory Panel and served as a Nominated Member of Parliament from 2014 to 2015. He also served as the President of Yale-NUS College for 5 years, from 2017 to 2022. On 1 Jan 2023, Prof Tan officially began his tenure as the new President of SUSS, succeeding Prof Cheong Hee Kiat, the founding President.
As the incoming Editor of the Alumni newsletter, I was privileged to interview Prof Tan at his office to find out more about our new leader. We covered many topics, from his personal motivations in taking up this new leadership role at SUSS and his aspirations for SUSS’s continued development to his personal exhortations for the ongoing advancement of our SUSS Alumni community.
From the start, I was put at ease by Prof Tan’s easy-going nature and amiable demeanour as he shared interesting insights and observations to the questions posed to him. I hope that the highlights of the interview will give our alumni a quick introduction to our new President. I am sure that there will be many occasions for more alumni to meet him at upcoming alumni events.
Question: Prof Tan, what was it that motivated you to leave the comfort and security of a reputable and established institution like NUS to lead SUSS?
It was not a planned move. In fact, I had indicated to the NUS President that I wanted a break after stepping down as President of Yale-NUS and was planning to return to teaching and research after a sabbatical. When the SUSS offer came along, I spoke to friends at MOE, as well as the then President of SUSS, Hee Kiat, to better understand the role. Having spent all my career at NUS — an institution with more than a 100-year history — I must say that I was not familiar with SUSS which is Singapore’s sixth autonomous university, specifically in terms of the university’s mission and vision. However, from my conversations, I quickly learnt that SUSS, its purposes and overall mission, really resonated with me. The devotion to doing social good is really a unique feature: from its educational mission in upskilling and addressing the needs of adult learners to its applied social sciences research mission, its social services disciplines and its aspiration of nurturing and supporting students to make a difference in society. I saw this as an opportunity to do something meaningful in what might be the last phase of my academic career at SUSS. In any case, I proceeded with my planned 6-month sabbatical from June to 31 December 2022, before assuming my present appointment.
Question: Prof Tan, do share with us how you felt when you first came on board?
I saw the need to make some adjustments in terms of my mental orientation because NUS and SUSS, although both are institutes of higher learning, are entirely different institutions, with a different scale, vision, and mission.
SUSS is a university with an important mission of inspiring lifelong education and transforming society through its applied social sciences curriculum. And through its industry-relevant tertiary education, SUSS offers a broad range of continuing education and modular courses for the professional skills upgrading of Singapore’s workforce.
Hence, with part-time students forming a majority of the SUSS student cohort, we should think of innovative ways to support and engage these learners, finding ways to mitigate the current space and facility constraints.
Universities need to prepare their graduates for the workforce. In this regard, a hybrid work arrangement in a digital economy is inevitable. Employers now recognise the need to digitalise and move towards a future workforce where employees utilise both face-to-face and virtual meetings. This is where the unique SUSS mission of providing a disruption-proof education and relevant tertiary-based education comes into play alongside this hybrid digital transformation of having both physical and virtual interactions. It is precisely because of the strategic intent of being a leading university for social good, that both myself and our SUSS Provost – Professor Robbie Goh, wish to advance this vision.
Question: Prof Tan, you were previously the President and Professor of Humanities (History) at the Yale-NUS College. Do you think the management style would/should differ since the profile of SUSS students are quite different (compared to the Liberal Arts students from Yale-NUS)?
There are some key fundamentals that are similar between NUS and SUSS:
1) Good management team in place to effectively lead the institution;
2) Good vision & mission statements in place; These must be concise and inspiring statements that clearly communicate the direction and values of an institution in terms of its objectives, how it will achieve those objectives and where the institution aspires to go.
3) Strong community support (from MOE, students, and alumni);
4) Adequate financial support; and
5) Adequate logistics and operational support (i.e. research facilities, computer labs etc.)
While these key fundamentals are similar, we need to also recognise some key differences such as the size and composition of the educational institution and its culture. This is important as it will allow us to next determine what management style and how it should be executed.
The scale and size of NUS, in terms of its campus as well as its student population and staff members, are much larger as compared to SUSS. In addition, the stakeholders, in this case, the students and their individual profiles are different in both NUS and SUSS respectively. The typical NUS undergraduate will be from our local junior colleges, polytechnics, and graduates from the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme who are enrolled as full-time students.
At SUSS, the majority of our students are enrolled as part-time students with a full-time job and family commitments. Attrition rate is higher amongst adult learners. As such, we need to ensure that our degree programmes provide students with the opportunity to upskill and equip them with not just the knowledge in their chosen disciplines, but also in the broader suite of skill sets. This extends to effective communications, digitalisation, critical analysis, real-life application, and interdisciplinary projects, which will in turn allow them to be adaptive and flexible in response to changes in the workplace and society.
Apart from the scale and size of the university, another key factor is culture. Yale-NUS is an international collaboration between Yale University and NUS, and it was the first liberal arts college in Singapore and one of the first few in Asia. As such, culture-wise, Yale-NUS is very international and adopts a global citizen perspective in its strategic vision. Students live and learn in an intercultural community that encourages exploration, engagement and interactivity while introducing students to the diverse intellectual traditions and cultures of Asia and the world. With stakeholders of diverse cultures, we need to be more mindful of how sensitive issues and practices impacting race, language, religion and inclusivity are perceived.
On the other hand, presently SUSS is still a very local Singaporean educational institution with the majority of our student population comprising Singapore citizens and/or permanent residents. With the local Singaporean culture at SUSS, it is in a sense a more homogeneous group. This facilitates an easier understanding of the local culture as we are very familiar and accustomed to the local way of doing things. To me, SUSS has done well in its short history and has so much potential to do even better. There is a lot of common purpose between our staff (i.e. in terms of extending all forms of administrative and academic support) and students (i.e. who are engaged in their lifelong learning journey with SUSS). This compatibility is indeed important because the students’ success is a true reflection of the staff’s success and the overall success of SUSS.
Question: SUSS focuses on continuous and applied learning; as well as social sciences research. We have also introduced a new curriculum. Can you share some of your new plans for the university? What are your thoughts on the desired outcomes that you would like to achieve and the impact on our graduates?
SUSS is unique – the idea of a university devoted to doing social good is really a distinctive feature. While all universities aim to do good to its stakeholders in various ways, at SUSS, the university mission is based on social good as the higher purpose of higher education.We need to first examine and analyse the changing needs of the economy and industry, both locally and globally. In doing this effectively, we can then tailor our university programmes and curriculum that will create a positive impact on our stakeholders (i.e., students, employers and society). The most effective way to help students reach their potential, and best prepare them to be successful in their lives and careers, is to equip them with skills that will help them succeed in work and life. SUSS has a very strong culture of lifelong learning, and we train students to be self-directed learners and to be able to upskill “on the fly” while coping with work, personal life, and other commitments.
To complement this, SUSS as a community-oriented university must be proactive in engaging and forging partnerships with our stakeholders. By fostering these purposeful relationships, the university will learn how to better prepare its graduates for the workforce with a disruption-proof education. Ultimately, this will be a win-win situation for the student, graduate, employer, society as well as SUSS.
Question: SUSS stands for developing work-adaptive alumni with lifelong learning habits and promoting engagements for social good. What’s your aspiration for our alumni on how they can play their part in the university’s vision? How would you like to engage the alumni community?
At SUSS, we are the sum total of our relationships with our stakeholders; our students, alumni, faculty and staff, employers, collaborators, donors, and partners. As a service and community-oriented university, we are particularly focused on strengthening and growing these vital relationships. As a tribute to our Alumni, I want to emphasise that you are incredibly important to us. As an alumnus, you are a vital part in ensuring that our university continues to evolve and bring depth to the student experience. You are our advocate for SUSS, and you are out there changing conversations, challenging the status quo, and improving work processes. You will provide the momentum for our continued success as a university.
There are many opportunities for alumni to be active and engaged with SUSS. I encourage you to participate in our university events or volunteer to help at an SUSS alumni event. You can be effective mentors to our students. Every contribution counts as we strive to achieve our vision of being the university for social good.
Question: With the changing landscape in higher education, what do you think are the potential disruptions that could impact SUSS? What are your thoughts on how SUSS can respond to manage these disruptions? How do you see these changes impacting our students and alumni, many of whom are working adults?
Looking at the current landscape of tertiary education in Singapore, SUSS will indeed have a potential and huge market to tap. From providing tertiary education to G.C.E. ‘A’ Level graduates, International Baccalaureate (IB) graduates, Polytechnic graduates, as well as part-time adult learners looking to upgrade their skills and knowledge, there is a big pool of students for us to reach.
However, to do this effectively and efficiently, we must be good at what we do. When we do well in what we set out to do as a university, we will then be able to attract students to enrol with SUSS. SUSS believes the future is hybrid and we will strive to create a hybrid educational experience that is meaningful, relevant and impactful for our students especially our part-time student adult learners as they form the majority of our student cohort. Along the way, SUSS can also benchmark against international and overseas universities to discover what these other international educational institutions are doing to attract students. For instance, having a shorter candidature for its degree programmes, training subsidies, scholarships and many more. More importantly, we as a university need to be ready for challenges and change and to manage disruptions effectively. We need resilience, adaptability, inventiveness, empathy, and community-mindedness.
As President, I hope my commitment will lend weight on how to best fulfil the SUSS mission, and I fully relish the challenge of doing so.
Question: As a wrap up, we hope you can give our alumni a peek into your personal life, beyond work. Prof, what do you do during your leisure time? What are some of your favourite food/drinks? Any sports that you enjoy? With your busy schedule, what is the one thing you would really like to accomplish?
My wife and I have been married for 35 years and we have 2 grown-up children. Like myself, my wife is also an academic, and she lectures at the NUS Centre for English Language Communication. I am a firm believer in Work-Life Balance (WLB), and I will try to be disciplined and not process work emails after 11 PM. In order to maintain WLB, I travel as frequently as possible with my wife. In the past due to work, my travels take me to faraway places, like the US and Europe etc. For leisure, however, we love to take short trips to visit parts of Southeast Asia.
Food-wise, I enjoy local food, especially the hawker centre gems such as char kway teow and roti prata. The convenience of the new Thomson East Coast MRT Line has given us more reasons to check out places like Maxwell Hawker Centre to satisfy the foodie in me.
Aside from that, I am almost a teetotaller, with the exception of having half a glass of wine at social events. I prefer a cup of flat white coffee or the local “Kopi C Kosong”. I am a firm believer of exercising regularly and being moderate in food consumption though.
For exercise, I used to play soccer and racket games. Of late, I am into more individualised activities such as running and hitting the gym 3-4 times a week, if my schedule permits. And to complement this, I also try to take care of myself and get a full night (at least 7 hours) of adequate sleep.
Wow, it looks like Prof Tan has many trails to explore; in his new role at SUSS, with his wife during their short overseas travels and as a foodie seeking out our special hawker eats. Best wishes, Prof Tan for all your upcoming (ad)ventures!
