Shu-Park Chan (1929–February 22, 2013) was a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

-born

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

who served for many years as a professor at

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

and went on to found International Technological University and serve as its first president.

Early life and education

Chan grew up in

Canton, China Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong ...

, where his father,

Chen Jitang Chen Jitang () (January 23, 1890 – November 3, 1954), also spelled Chen Chi-tang, was born into a Hakka Chinese family in Fangcheng, Guangxi. He joined the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance in 1908 and began serving in the Guangdong Army in 19 ...

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...

ancestry), was a

warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

and the leader of Kwangtung province from 1929 to 1936. His father had three wives; Shu-Park Chan was the tenth of the 18 children born to the family. Like his father, Shu-Park Chan served in the

Chinese Nationalist Chinese nationalism () is a form of nationalism in the People's Republic of China (Mainland China) and the Republic of China on Taiwan which asserts that the Chinese people are a nation and promotes the cultural and national unity of all Chin ...

army in the late 1940s. After China came under

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

control, his father fled to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

and sent the 19-year-old Shu-Park to the United States to obtain an education. His father hoped that his son could use the fruits of his western education to benefit the education system of his native country. In the U.S., Chan studied engineering at

Virginia Military Institute la, Consilio et Animis (on seal) , mottoeng = "In peace a glorious asset, In war a tower of strength""By courage and wisdom" (on seal) , established = , type = Public senior military college , accreditation = SACS , endowment = $696.8 mill ...

and the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

, receiving a Ph.D. at Illinois in 1962.

Santa Clara University

After obtaining his Ph.D., Chan joined the faculty of Santa Clara University in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. He went on to become a U.S. citizen in 1965 and he taught

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at Santa Clara for over 30 years, serving for a time as interim dean of the university's School of Engineering. At Santa Clara University, he was a mentor to many Ph.D. candidates and personally taught more than 10,000 students. His work as an educator contributed significantly to the growth of

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

as a center for technology. His research specialty was in the area of

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...

and

network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements ( links, nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, including command and contro ...

, a field that connects electrical engineering with

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

, and Ph.D students he mentored were to become founders or co-founders of companies such as

Cadence Design Systems Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence), headquartered in San Jose, California, is an American multinational corporation, multinational computational software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. The co ...

Atmel Atmel Corporation was a creator and manufacturer of semiconductors before being subsumed by Microchip Technology in 2016. Atmel was founded in 1984. The company focused on embedded systems built around microcontrollers. Its products included micr ...

, Microelectronics Technologies, and

Oak Technology Oak Technology was an American supplier of semiconductor chips for sound cards, graphics cards and optical storage devices such as CD-ROM, CD-RW and DVD. It achieved success with optical storage chips and its stock price increased substantiall ...

. In 2009, an article in ''

AsianWeek ''AsianWeek'' was America's first and largest English language print and on-line publication serving Asian Americans. The news organization played an important role nationally and in the San Francisco Bay Area as the “Voice of Asian America”. ...

'' stated that "over 80% of all microprocessors designed and developed within the last 20 years have been created or touched by technology generated from Professor Chan’s students." Chan was the author or co-author of several engineering books. He wrote the 1972

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textboo ...

''Analysis of Linear Networks and systems: A Matrix-Oriented Approach with Computer Applications'' (

Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles through ...

) together with his brothers Shu-Yun and Shu-Gar Chan; they dedicated the book to their father.

Later career

In 1984, during a period when China was establishing cooperative ventures with Western countries, Chan took a leave of absence from Santa Clara University and moved to

Shenzhen, China Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major Sub-provincial division, sub-provincial city and one of the Special economic zones of China, special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pea ...

, to establish a university there. Chinese authorities had allocated of land there for the school, which was to be called the Chinese Experimental University. Chan had obtained necessary permissions from the U.S. and Chinese governments, as well as pledges of financial support from Chinese authorities and U.S. companies. He said the school would be China's "first western-style university since the People's Republic was founded." A few weeks before construction was scheduled to start, the project was cancelled due to changes in the Chinese government, leading Chan to return to the United States. Chan did not give up on his quest to start an educational institution after the failure of his Shenzhen initiative. In 1992, he retired from Santa Clara University with the intention of starting a new university in Silicon Valley that could offer graduate engineering education "in the shortest time possible, at the lowest cost." He opened International Technological University two years later, in 1994, and served as its president until retiring in 2010. In his final years, Chan had

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. He died in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

on February 22, 2013, the same day that International Technological University was

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

by the

Western Association of Schools and Colleges The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing School accreditation, accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary school, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, ...

Personal life

Chan was married to Stella Chan. They had two children. Their son, Yau-Gene Chan, succeeded his father as president of International Technological University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chan, Shu-Park 1929 births 2013 deaths American electrical engineers Heads of universities and colleges in the United States Educators from Guangdong Santa Clara University faculty Silicon Valley people University and college founders Grainger College of Engineering alumni Virginia Military Institute alumni Hakka scientists People from Bobai Military personnel of the Republic of China Hong Kong people Chinese Civil War refugees People with acquired American citizenship Republic of China (1912–1949) emigrants to the United States Chinese emigrants to British Hong Kong