He began teaching at National Peking University, at age 26 the youngest professor. Then, when Peking was besieged by the Chinese Communists, the ROC government sent a special plane to bring Dr. Chien and a few other outstanding scholars to Nanking, and finally to Taipei.
In January 1949, he was appointed to a professorship and named dean of education at National Taiwan University. He assisted Fu Szu-nien, then president of the university, to make the university a model Chinese institution of higher learning. The students abandoned the black tunics and the hip towels tucked under the belts of the militaristic Japanese student body. Above all, academic freedom was assured, although the whole country was engaged in bitter warfare with the Communists.
When Fu suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1951, Dr. Chien was the natural choice to replace him. In his subsequent 19 years as university president, the longest such tenure in Chinese record, Dr. Chien made NTU not only the largest university in Taiwan, but also one of the world's prestigious universities. In addition to institutionalizing the curricula of the five colleges—law, science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, he built up a number of excellent libraries and laboratories with assistance from the United States.
Dr. Chien's efforts, prior to Taiwan economic success, to obtain U.S. assistance to develop the university were so strenuous that one reporter wrote this doggerel for circulation on the NTU campus:
He opens his mouth for money,
He closes his mouth for money.
Who is that man?
Money is his surname.
In Chinese, chien means money. But Dr. Chien always ignored creature comforts for himself. He never budged from his dilapidated Japanese-style quarters, which must have a history of at least half a century.
Under his stewardship, National Taiwan University became the top goal of Chinese scholastic aspirants. Each year, the 100,000 high school graduates who take part in the highly competitive joint entrance examination for colleges, without exception, make National Taiwan University their first choice.
In 1970, Dr. Chien moved up to the presidency of the country's top academic institution—the Academia Sinica. Although a natural scientist himself, Dr. Chien gave equal importance to the social sciences and to biological studies at the academy. In his 13-year tenure, he increased the Academia's institutes from 9 to 13, with another 2 still in the preparatory stage.
Before Dr. Chien's presidency, the Academia had a reputation as an ivory tower, housing world famous scholars. It was Dr. Chien who made them involve themselves in the activities of the country by assuming leading posts in other cultural and scientific organizations.
Every other year, he would go abroad to meet Chinese scholars and solicit their advice. This year—no exception—was his last. On May 1, he launched visits to Germany and the United States, returning to Taiwan on June 16.
Dr. Chien suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes, and even before the trip, he felt indisposed. He would not cancel the trip simply because his meetings with the scholars had been long arranged. "I will not inconvenience them," he told his subordinates.
After returning from the strenuous 46-day trip, the 76-year-old scholar went right from the airport, not to his home but to his office. A week later, he could not stand up under his workload and checked in at the National Taiwan University Hospital for a physical check and for treatment of diabetes and coronary thrombosis. He was placed under intensive care, but at times fell into a kind of trance. Once, pointing out diagnostic files placed on a bureau, he scolded a nurse for failing to allow him to "process the official papers," mistaking the hospital ward for his office.
Dr. Chien passed away on the evening of September 15, 1983. He is survived by three sons, all of whom have made their own marks in this country. Robert Chien Chun, the eldest, is deputy governor of the Central Bank or China. His second son, Dr. Chien Hsu, a professor of physiology and director of circulatory physiology and biophysics at Columbia University, is also a member of Academia Sinica. His youngest son, Dr. Fredrick F. Chien, was vice foreign minister of the Republic of China before taking up his present post as head of the Coordination Council of North American Affairs, the Republic of China's office in Washington, D.C.