Hu Dunfu

Hu Dunfu (; 1886 – December 1, 1978) was a Chinese mathematician and pioneer in higher education. He won a Qing government scholarship to study at Cornell University, and became the first dean of Tsinghua University at the age of 25. He was then briefly dean of Fudan University, before establishing Utopia University in 1912 and developing it into one of China's best private universities. He also served as head of the mathematics department of National Chiao Tung University and the first president of the Chinese Mathematical Society, which he co-founded in 1935.

Early life and education Hu Dunfu was born in 1886 into a prominent family of scholar-officials in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, a descendant of the Song dynasty Confucian scholar and educator Hu Yuan (胡瑗; 993–1059). When he was 11, he was admitted by the elementary school of Nanyang Public School (now Shanghai Jiao Tong University), and later attended its secondary school. When his teacher Ma Xiangbo left Nanyang to establish Aurora University and later Fudan University, Hu, together with Huang Yanpei and others, followed Ma and became the first students at Aurora and then Fudan.

In June 1907, Hu won a government scholarship to study in the United States, and entered Cornell University in September. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in only two years, and returned to China in August 1909. Hu Dunfu was hired as the first dean of Tsinghua, at the age of 25. Hu was hired by Ma Xiangbo as dean of Fudan University, but soon left the school after a student strike. Hu served as the first president of the society.

As the Chinese Communist Party defeated the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War, Hu Dunfu followed the retreating Kuomintang government to Taiwan in 1949. The new Communist government of the People's Republic of China closed Utopia along with many other private schools in 1952, and its departments were split up and merged into six public universities in Shanghai. Hu tried to re-establish Utopia University in Taiwan, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Later life in the United States Hu later moved to the United States, where he taught at the University of Washington until his retirement in 1962. He died on December 1, 1978, in Seattle, at the age of 92.