Background
Shisun Ding was born on September 5, 1927 in Shanghai, China. He was the son of Ding Rounong and Liu Huixian.
丁石孙
academic administrator mathematician politician
Shisun Ding was born on September 5, 1927 in Shanghai, China. He was the son of Ding Rounong and Liu Huixian.
Shisun Ding attended Utopia University in Shanghai from 1944 to 1947. A participant in anti-government student activities, he was arrested by the Kuomintang government and expelled by the university. As a result, he moved north to Beijing and entered Tsinghua University in 1948
Ding graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University in 1950, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and was hired by the university as an assistant professor. In 1952, Shisun Ding transferred to Peking University, where he later rose to lecturer and professor.
During the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1958, Shisun Ding sympathized with those denounced as "rightists". Although not labelled a rightist, he received administrative admonition and was expelled from the Communist Party of China in 1960. His membership was later restored. When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, Shisun Ding was imprisoned and later sent to perform manual labour at a May Seventh Cadre School.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Shisun Ding was politically rehabilitated and appointed vice chair of the Department of Mathematics of Peking University. He was promoted to chairman in 1980.
In 1982, Shisun Ding resigned as mathematics chair and went to Harvard University as a visiting scholar. While he was away in the United States, Peking University ran a poll in 1983 among senior faculty members to select its next president, and Shisun Ding received the most votes.
In March 1984, he was appointed President of Peking University at the age of 57. During his tenure, he promoted the spirit of "democracy and science", but some of his reforms were thwarted by the government. In 1988, he submitted his resignation to Education Minister Li Tieying, but Li declined the request. When the Tiananmen Square protests erupted in April 1989, students of Peking University played a leading role and Shisun Ding did not prevent them from joining the protests. After the Chinese government cracked down on the protests in June 1989, he was forced to resign in August 1989. He was replaced by Wu Shuqing, a vice president of Renmin University.
On the invitation of Fei Xiaotong, Chairman of the China Democratic League (CDL), Shisun Ding became a full-time Vice Chairman of the CDL in 1993, although he continued to teach freshman mathematics at Peking University. In November 1996, he succeeded Fei as Chairman of the CDL. He became a Vice Chairperson of the National People's Congress in 1998, serving two terms until 2008. In December 2005, Shisun Ding retired as Chairman of CDL and became an honorary chairman.
He died on October 12, 2019 in Beijing, aged 92. On October 17, he was buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.
In 1956, Shisun Ding married Gui Linlin, a faculty member in the chemistry department of Peking University. Their wedding was held on the university campus and attended by many students and teachers. They had a son.