In response to Han Fook Kwang’s column “Singapore R&D: Expensive Lesson or Worthwhile Experience?" last Sunday, SMU President Professor Arnoud De Meyer and SMU Provost Professor Lily Kong highlighted that the University’s partnership with Wharton has helped enrich the landscape of higher education in Singapore. They believe the experience of SMU is particularly valuable because SMU has the distinction of being the earliest to enter into a significant collaboration with an international partner, and thus have the advantage of almost 20 years of evolution and development to reflect on.

Prof De Meyer and Prof Kong pointed out that SMU also had the mission to be an agent of change, to break the mould. SMU departed from the deeply British tradition that the National University of Singapore and NTU followed, by being fashioned after the US system. Its partner Wharton provided lots of inputs and guidance, for example, in the design of the curriculum, the concept of a unique holistic education with small classes, a commitment to community service and a link between theory and practice, as well as many faculty management systems.