June 12, 2022 is the 99th anniversary of the birth of Mr. Liu Bao, founding Dean of the College of Management and Economics (CoME, former School of Management) of TJU.

To honor the ancestor, with theme of "Forever Spirit Coordinates", anniversary ceremony commemorating Mr. Liu Bao's 99th birthday was held in the hall of Building No. 25. By explaining the way of life and recalling moving story of Mr. Liu Bao, the celebrating activity reviewed his outstanding contributions in systems engineering management disciplines and the construction and development of the College. Representatives of faculty and students attended the event and laid flowers.

Born on June 12, 1923 in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, Mr. Liu Bao is an expert in automatic control and system engineering. He is one of the pioneers of system engineering and management disciplines in China, the founding director of the Institute of System Engineering of TJU, and the founding dean of CoME. He has been honored as one of "Tianjin University’s Eighteen".

In 1946, after graduating from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Chongqing University, Mr. Liu Bao entered the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University as a teaching assistant. He received his master's degree from the University of Colorado in 1949. At that time, the People’s Republic of China was founded. Mr. Liu Bao realized the importance of education and science and technology to the development of the country and the nation. He gave up the opportunity of further study and chose to return to China. In February 1950, he became a teacher at the PLA Naval School. In 1954, he transferred to TJU. During his work at TJU, he successively served as director of Teaching and Research Section of Chemical Instrument, director of Teaching and Research Department of Thermal Instrument, director of Electric Power and Automation Engineering Department, director of Research Institute of System Engineering, dean and honorary dean of the School of Management and so on.

In his early years, Mr. Liu Bao engaged in the teaching and research of automatic control and founded China's first chemical instrument and automation major. He is the pioneer of instrument automation education in China. In 1954, he published the first monograph on automatic control "Principle of Automatic Control" in China and in 1963, he published "Theoretical Basis of Automatic Regulation", which had wide impacts. In the early 1960s, he led the research of pneumatic automatics and its technology which laid the theoretical and methodological foundation for pneumatic automatics in Chinese instrument research field.

Since 1978, his research areas have extended to the systems engineering and management disciplines. He put forward the academic thought of using the system approaches to solve important social and economic problems, established a set of social and economic system modeling comprehensive theories integrating various theories and methods. He also founded Institute of Systems Engineering at TJU, which is one of the first system engineering research institutions in China.

Mr. Liu Bao’s research achievements have won two second prizes and one third prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award and 10 provincial and ministerial Science and Technology Progress Awards. He has published nearly 100 academic papers in domestic and foreign journals and officially published proceedings. He has cultivated more than 80 masters and 30 doctors and made great contributions to the development of management and systems engineering disciplines in China. He has won many honorary titles such as Model Worker of Tianjin, Tianjin Excellent Educator, National Excellent Returned Overseas Chinese, National-level Honorary Award for 40 Years of University Science and Technology Work, Golden Key Award of TJU and so on.

Mr. Liu Bao devoted his life to education and science. His father Liu Haisu was a master of contemporary art in China, the founder of modern art education, a pioneer of the new art movement and an outstanding art educator. On July 31, 2013, Mr. Liu Bao passed away in Tianjin at the age of 90.

On October 24, 2018, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the restoration of management education at TJU, the statue of Mr. Liu Bao, founding director of The Institute of Systems Engineering and founding dean of the School of Management of TJU was unveiled. The statue has been standing in the hall of the CoME, reminding the younger generations to remember and honor Mr. Liu Bao's outstanding contributions, inherit and carry forward his academic spirit of seeking truth from facts and the attitude of being family-minded and to inherit and develop Mr. Liu Bao's education philosophy and educational policy, which encourages all faculty and students to make unremitting efforts.

Recently, the life and story of Mr. Liu Bao will be displayed in the hall to recall the history and enlighten future generations.

By College of Management and Economics

Editor: Sun Xiaofang