UCI’s Tien Steps Into Center of Debate About Asian Stereotype

A stereotype has lurked behind the controversy over the allegations of anti-Asian bias in UC Berkeley’s admissions policies: Asian-Americans as academic super-achievers.

Discipline and other cultural factors have propelled Asian-Americans to extraordinary successes in higher education. But, Asian-American activists say, bigots resent their achievement and fear universities will be overrun by Asian students.

Into the debate steps Chang-Lin Tien, the UC Irvine executive vice chancellor who was named Thursday as the next chancellor of UC Berkeley. Tien is the first Asian-American to head a UC campus and may be the first to lead any major research university. He and his family make no apologies for the super-achiever image.

“I think he is a super-achiever and can accomplish anything,” Masayoshi Tomizuka, a mechanical engineering professor at UC Berkeley, said of the man who was once his colleague and will soon be his boss. “Aggressive might not be a good word, but he is very outgoing.”

Tien, 54, and his wife, Di-Hwa, have two daughters and a son. All three children graduated from UC Berkeley and are enrolled in tough graduate programs: Norman in microelectronics at UC San Diego, Phyllis at UC San Diego Medical School and Kristine at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Earning multiple degrees is a family tradition. Tien was born the son of a banker in pre-revolutionary China. He earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from National Taiwan University, a master’s from the University of Louisville (where, as a nonwhite, he felt anguish in the segregated South of the 1950s), and a second master’s and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. All by age 24.

He went on to a long and prize-winning career in teaching and research, specializing in heat-transfer technology, at UC Berkeley, eventually becoming vice chancellor for research there. He was praised for his efforts to help improve--after much controversy--conditions for laboratory animals.

Tien has been second in command at UC Irvine since 1988. Administrators, staff members and students there credit Tien with initiating a number of innovative programs, particularly in regard to affirmative action.

At a news conference on the UC Irvine campus Friday, however, Tien talked modestly about his accomplishments and the role he played at the school, saying that Chancellor Jack W. Peltason deserves much of the credit for the advances made during Tien’s 18 months at the campus.

“We initiated a number of initiatives in terms of getting cultural diversity, “ Tien said of the efforts he made with Peltason. “Again, I must emphasize that many things were not initiated by me. . . . I don’t think my leaving will affect any of the programs or impact on their completion. The institution will go on.”

He also gave thanks for the support he received during his tenure. “I feel the community here and the faculty, students and staff have been extraordinarily generous and kind to me,” he said.

Prof. Joseph Frisch, who worked with Tien in the mechanical engineering department at UC Berkeley, described him as a bright, friendly and hard-working man “who can be very hard-nosed if he has to be.”

“He is not the typical engineer,” Frisch said. “He is not just a problem-solver. I think he has a very good understanding of psychology.”

Ling-chi Wang, chairman of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, said that Tien, a naturalized American citizen, “is not the stereotype of the Chinese scholar being very reserved, very dignified, very soft-spoken; nor is he the stereotype of the aggressive white executive slapping people on the back. He is sort of in between.”

Tien takes over at UC Berkeley July 1. Among his challenges will be to replace the large number of professors expected to retire within the next few years and to raise the number of minority teachers at the school while maintaining the school’s worldwide reputation for excellence. He also will inherit a federal investigation into allegations of ethnic bias in admissions. The federal inquiry comes after several state and university investigations that turned up nothing conclusive.

“I don’t think any world-class university can achieve excellence without diversity,” said Tien, who still has a strong Chinese accent. “So diversity and excellence must come hand-in-hand.”

Staff writer Tony Marcano contributed to this report.