If we want to identify the great success of American research universities, and that success goes far beyond Harvard, we have to come back to the question of governance. Excellence requires a firewall between trusteeship, or government ministries, and the academic decision-making process. This American concept of shared governance wherein the faculty are engaged in running the university as part of a collaboration with the other stakeholders.

That said, there are a few clear factors that determine the potential of a university to reach the highest levels of excellence. In the case of Harvard University, it was true that by the time of its tercentenary (300th anniversary of its founding) in 1936, Harvard had already achieved a reputation as a world-class institution. Harvard did not have the stature that it does today.

There are, however, many challenges to Asian universities. First, academic freedom, in all senses, is much more critical to the success of a university than how much money is spent on infrastructure or on hiring big names. Faculty need to have the space to pursue the research that they are passionate about and the also need to have the freedom to express their opinions in the university, and in the society as a whole.

But, before we in America critique East Asia, we must also recognize that we are - unfortunately - taking on some of the same characteristics. Getting in the top institutions has become far more difficult and the value placed on one school over another in terms of education and careers has been much exaggerated.

On the one hand, there is no question that English - frequently bad English - has become the universal language of scholarship. It is clearly a tremendous handicap for people outside of the United States, Britain, and Australia and a few other countries because few of them are native speakers, but we demand that they present and publish in English.

Asian colleges would do well to use a broad range of criteria in selecting students and move beyond the unproductive "examination hell. "

It is equally unreasonable to run a university as a "participatory democracy," the approach to governance that once existed in Europe. That approach in European institutions of higher learning was appealing to professors because it was democratic. But those institutions also suffered because they lacked an executive decision-making process; making changes became virtually impossible.