A new honors college at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, established with a 3 billion yuan donation from alumnus Shen Nanpeng, is pioneering a radical approach to elite education. The Redwood College, operated through the university's Zhiyuan College, will select exceptional "Redwood Scholars" and grant them extraordinary autonomy, including free choice of major and a flexible 3-to-6-year academic schedule, while notably abandoning traditional grade-point rankings.
Redwood College's Innovative Model
Shen Nanpeng, founding and managing partner of Sequoia Capital China and a member of the university's inaugural 1985 pilot reform class, has provided the founding endowment. He will serve as the honorary dean, with SJTU President Ding Kuiling acting as the inaugural dean. The "Redwood Scholars Program" will select its first cohort from the class of 2026 in early 2027. After completing their first semester, students can apply for the program. Once selected, they can choose any major across the university's main campus.
The program emphasizes a "one student, one plan" personalized training model, strengthening foundations in mathematics, physics, and chemistry while building AI literacy. A "Redwood Mentor Group," composed of top scientists, industry leaders, and corporate executives, will provide academic guidance, research direction, industry perspective, and career planning. The college aims to explore new AI-empowered educational models and a multi-dimensional evaluation system.
He Feng, executive vice dean of Zhiyuan College, explained that beyond the selection process, the core innovation of Redwood College is simultaneously opening up major choice, course pacing, mentor allocation, and evaluation methods. Students can transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries based on their interests, strengths, and capabilities, freely selecting courses and receiving a customized cultivation plan.
Moving Beyond Traditional Metrics
A key feature is the absence of a grade-point average ranking, replaced by a multi-dimensional evaluation system. He Feng stated that exam scores will only be a minor reference. The college will place greater value on whether students have specialized talents, have gained substantial capability growth from research practice, possess innovative potential, can formulate pertinent questions, and can identify new innovation points at the intersection of disciplines.
"Exam scores reflect the ability to understand and memorize knowledge, but we value more the ability to master knowledge and the capacity for human-AI collaboration. We believe posing the right question may be more important than solving it," He Feng said.
Responding to the AI Era in Education
Globally, AI is impacting university classrooms, assessments, academic integrity, and teacher-student relationships. Top universities worldwide are advancing reforms in AI and interdisciplinary training, liberal arts education, and elite talent cultivation. These changes point to a central question: when knowledge transmission is no longer scarce, universities must re-prove their value.
Zhiyuan College has long been a pioneer in China's higher education reform for cultivating top talent. Its explorations with honors courses, the tutorial system, early research engagement, and academic communities have placed it ahead of traditional undergraduate models. Yet, even here, the function of traditional classrooms and teaching methods faces the reality of needing significant reform.
He Feng observed that within traditional systems, grade rankings still cause many excellent students to over-invest energy. Some students aspiring to be scientists tend to choose more certain paths, lacking the courage to tackle major uncertain challenges. "We hope to cultivate scientists, and moreover, great scientists with a sense of national mission, future leaders capable of expanding the boundaries of human cognition," he stated.
Consequently, "Redwood Scholars" will gain significant freedom, but this does not mean an overall relaxation of standards. Instead, it follows a principle of "looser where it should be loose, tighter where it should be tight"—granting more freedom in major choice, course pace, and growth paths, while imposing higher requirements on foundational training, mentor guidance, sense of responsibility, and the demand to take on significant challenges. The goal is to free students from excessive focus on GPAs and predefined paths, redirecting their energy toward solving problems they genuinely care about.
Redefining the Mentor's Role
The Redwood Mentor Group also addresses changing teacher-student dynamics in the AI era. He Feng noted that students can already acquire knowledge-based content with AI's help. Therefore, mentors must focus on aspects "that cannot be obtained from AI." For Redwood Scholars, mentors will guide decisions on course selection, entry into research practice, and future directions in academia, industry, or management.
He Feng emphasized the importance of students and teachers spending significant time together, developing problem awareness and career cognition through continuous dialogue and practical research. The inclusion of industry-side mentors is linked to evolving talent demands. He Feng believes that leading innovative enterprises, especially in AI-related fields, are conducting cutting-edge technological and applied research. Corporate executives and entrepreneur mentors can immerse students in real-world problem scenarios, showing them how technology integrates into products, organizations, markets, and society. This offers a growth path distinct from a purely academic route for students interested in industrial innovation and organizational management.
SJTU students enrolling this September will have the opportunity to apply next year to become the first Redwood Scholars. He Feng indicated the college will start on a small scale, with an initial cohort expected to be around 40 to 50 students, allowing for continuous discussion and iteration of methods for cultivating top talent through the reform process.
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