NUS College (NUSC), the honours college of the National University of Singapore (NUS), has announced the new Tan Chorh Chuan Professorship and the Richard C Levin Professorship, in honour of two distinguished academic leaders who had significant influence in shaping pedagogy, advancing knowledge, and inspiring critical thinking.

Named after former NUS President Prof Tan and former Yale University President Prof Levin, the professorships are the first to be established at NUSC and celebrate the former presidents’ visionary leadership and dedication to innovative education.

Prof Tan and Prof Levin were also instrumental in the creation of Yale-NUS College, on which NUSC’s heritage is founded, and which inspired the reimagination of a rigorous interdisciplinary education that bridges Eastern and Western educational traditions.

In announcing the new professorships, NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye said: “These professorships recognise two outstanding and visionary academic leaders – Prof Tan and Prof Levin – for their unwavering commitment to academic excellence and deep passion for driving innovation, inspiring students, and advancing knowledge to solve the problems of tomorrow. Their legacies will continue to influence and shape the future of NUS College.”

Professor Simon Chesterman, Dean of NUSC, said: “This initiative celebrates the values that Rick and Chorh Chuan stand for and will enable like-minded leading educators to teach at NUS College. The professorships will support the cross-appointment of existing NUS faculty or attract visiting professors, so that we can bring in the very best educators from NUS or around the world to teach at NUS College.”

Prof Tan served as NUS President from to 2008 to 2017, while Prof Levin helmed Yale University as President from 1993 to 2013. Both will continue to serve as governing board members of Yale-NUS College.

Championing innovative global education

During his term as NUS President, Prof Tan championed transformative efforts and new models of education that led to NUS’ global recognition as the top university in Asia and one of the world’s leading universities. The pace of developments and new initiatives accelerated under his administration, including the creation of NUS University Town, the School of Continuing and Lifelong Education, several Research Centres of Excellence, and the Smart Nation Research Cluster. 

He found a like-minded visionary in Yale’s then-President Prof Levin, who is credited with raising academic standards at Yale and driving internationalisation initiatives to transform it into a global university. Prof Levin accepted Prof Tan’s invitation in 2009 to jointly establish Singapore’s first liberal arts and sciences college, Yale-NUS College, which along with the University Scholars Programme formed the foundations for NUSC. 

The professorships pay tribute to Prof Tan’s and Prof Levin’s instrumental roles in founding Yale-NUS College and building its fine legacy in liberal arts and sciences education while fostering a global perspective, which lives on today in NUSC’s common curriculum structure and its interdisciplinary educational experience that now encompasses degree programmes across the whole of NUS. 

Prof Tan said: “The creation of the named professorships is a signal honour, for which I am most grateful. I envision that the holders of these Professorships can play a valuable role in extending the trailblazing work of Yale-NUS College, in innovating and transforming the liberal arts educational model to inspire and inform the continuing transformation of education in NUS and beyond.” 

Prof Levin said: “I am deeply grateful that NUS has chosen to honour the contributions of Yale-NUS College to the development of liberal arts education in Singapore by establishing chairs in the names of the College’s co-founders. I hope that the holders of these chairs will strive, in the spirit of the College, to teach open-minded global citizens, driven by curiosity and love of learning, to appreciate the perspectives of multiple disciplines and the values and institutions of civilisations in other times and other places.” 

As the professorships are designed to foster cross-disciplinary learning, appointees will be selected from a variety of fields. The professorship tenures will be flexible, ranging from a semester to a three-year renewable term. 

The first Tan Chorh Chuan and Richard C Levin Professorships are expected to be given out by late 2025.