编者按：
2025年8月28日，北卡大学副教授严资杰博士遇害两周年纪念日，严博士纪念点揭幕仪式举行。
严资杰2019年加盟北卡大学时的应用物理系主任理查德·苏珀凡（Richard Superfine）教授，在仪式上的讲话感人至深。这位学术精英竟然还是出色的木匠。亲手用250年的古木打制3张长椅的这位知情重义的昔日领导，用他的言行，诠释了一位美国知识分子的胸怀、良心和担当。
众所周知，中美关系扑朔迷离，政客们强化的“威胁论”“间谍论”等，用各种手段极力制造的割裂和脱钩，并不会动摇和改变知识分子的良知。
严资杰博士的揭幕式，让我们看到，美国的强大、引领世界的真正能量和智慧，其实来自这些坚守良知、才华横溢的美国人民。
这是【华e生活】记者现场记录的苏珀凡教授的讲话，英文附后，以便读者校正！
今天我们怀着深切的思念缅怀我们的同事严资杰。
他才华横溢，
他是一位温雅之人，
他是一位善良之人。
两年前的悲剧让我们承受巨大痛苦，今天我们带着哀伤而来。来自全校的学生、博士后、教师和职员，尤其是我们系的师生员工，都共同聚集在这里。我感谢校长Roberts以及校领导们的支持。我要特别感谢应用物理科学系的工作人员，他们在面对悲痛的同时，依然用心筹备今天的纪念活动。
我们感谢严资杰的导师与朋友——Doug Chrissy 教授，他远道而来，为我们带来首场“严资杰纪念讲座”，让我们能继续从这位已逝的朋友身上汲取智慧。我们也要感谢为纪念点付出努力的委员和朋友们：感谢 Jinseng Wong 和 Rodney Friedman 提供纪念牌的设计与艺术创作；感谢 UNC 创客空间的 DJ Fedore；感谢研究生 Charlie Allen 代表研究生群体的意见；感谢 Hailey Harkins；感谢 UNC 景观设计师 Daniel Whittles 为纪念点的整体设计。
Daniel 介绍过花园的种植方案，其中包括结香（Edgeworthia）和南天竺（Chinese mahonia）等中国及亚洲植物品种，以此来纪念资杰的中国血脉。植物随人类迁徙而远渡重洋，这正是资杰的人生写照。几百年来，中国人来到美国，为美国的文化与经济做出了无数贡献。毕竟，美国自始至终就是一个移民的国家。
2011年，作为家中独子，资杰离开父母，从湖北来到纽约伦斯勒理工学院求学，并加入了 Chrissy 教授的团队。他或许当时并未想到，这位导师会成为他一生的挚友。想一想吧，他跨越七千英里开始这段旅程。今天缅怀他，我们也同样向所有跨越大洋来到这里的学子和学者致敬。无数本科生、研究生、博士后、教师与学者来自中国，他们的到来丰富了我们的学术，也丰富了我们的生活。
2019年，资杰来到北卡，加入了我们的教师队伍。他提醒我们，北卡大学本身就是一所因移民而生的大学。我们应用物理科学系为能在教堂山欢迎他和他的家人而感到骄傲。像迎接每一位新成员一样，我们期待他在这里开启新生活。
然而，结局本不该是这样。
几年前，我带领校董参观我们的创客空间。队伍后方，人类学教授 Rudy Colloredo-Mansfeld 用他洪亮的声音喊道：“这是图腾（totem）。”当时我正在讲解如何用达维白杨树（Davie Poplar）的倒枝制作钢笔，那些笔被校友视为珍宝。Rudy 解释说，图腾是家庭的象征，是赋予非凡意义的物件。哪怕是一支简单的笔，只要来自一棵珍贵的树，它就承载着我们卡罗来纳的精神。
我们每个人应对悲伤的方式不同。我的方式是“创造”。某种意义上，这似乎无力，仿佛一个物件无法承载如此深重的失落。但除此之外，我们还能做什么呢？在毫无道理可寻的痛苦中，我们只能去创造意义。于是便有了三条长椅的设想：一条放在卡罗来纳，一条送往他在Apex的家人，一条送回湖北父母身边。然而，仅有长椅本身并不是图腾。真正的图腾，在于塑造它的双手，在于那棵树本身。
感谢 Carolina Tree Heritage 的朋友们——Susan Cohen、Tom Bittel 和 Mike Everhart，他们让卡罗来纳的伟大树木得以重生。他们为我们提供了一棵雄伟的北美栓皮栎（post oak, Quercus stellata）的木料。这棵树大约在1770年萌芽，在卡罗来纳的蓝天下年复一年成长。1793年，当第一批学生踏入 UNC 校园时，它已挺立在那里。此后，世世代代的学子触摸过它、依靠过它，在它荫下休憩，甚至留下过伤痕。那些伤痕至今仍留在木材中，被新的年轮包裹，成为树的一部分。
这棵树，如同我们一样，把伤痕带入了心材。年复一年，伤痕深埋，但永远不会消失。资杰——永不被遗忘，永远在我们心中。
加工一棵250年古树的木材，令人无比谦卑。你不会因它的裂纹或瑕疵而评判它，你只会心怀感恩。这棵橡树带着几个世纪的气息。从 Susan、Mike、Tom，到应用物理科学系全体，这张长椅便是我们的“图腾”。
资杰热爱自然。我们有一张珍贵的照片，记录了他在纽约州北部湖畔钓鱼的身影。我们也常常谈到中美两国对“时间”的不同理解：在美国，我们以独立战争来对照这棵250年的古树；而中国的历史，则以延续千年的王朝来书写。我常想，资杰是否也曾在荆门的橡树林间钓鱼？是否也有一棵属于他的中国橡树？我愿意相信，他会喜欢在这张用卡罗来纳橡树制成的长椅上休憩，在卡罗来纳的蓝天下安然微笑。
在这里，我会继续与他对话——
聊攀爬的树木，聊光，聊时间，聊善意。
Remarks by Professor Richard Superfine at the Unveiling of the Memorial for Dr. Zijie Yan
Based on the recording
In memory of our colleague Zijie,
he was brilliant,
he was a man of grace,
he was a man of kindness.
We all come here carrying grief, carrying the weight of loss from the tragedy two years ago. Students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and staff from across this campus, and from our own department, join together today. I thank Chancellor Roberts and university leadership for their support. I give special thanks to the dedicated staff, especially within Applied Physical Sciences, who have helped with today’s event, even while facing the pain of this remembrance.
We are grateful to Professor Doug Chrissy, Zijie’s mentor and friend, who has traveled here to give the first Zijie Yan Memorial Lecture, so that we can continue to learn from the memory of our departed friend. We also thank the committee members and friends who worked to create this memorial space: to Jinseng Wong and Rodney Friedman, who provided the design and artwork of the plaque; to DJ Fedore of the UNC Makerspace team; to graduate student Charlie Allen for sharing input from our graduate students; to Hailey Harkins; and to Daniel Whittles, the UNC landscape architect who designed the site.
Daniel told me about the plantings in this garden. They include Chinese and Asian species such as Edgeworthia and Chinese Mahonia, chosen to honor Zijie’s Chinese heritage. Species from faraway lands travel the earth, following the migrations of people. This is Zijie’s story. For centuries, people from China have traveled here and contributed to U.S. culture and economy in countless ways. After all, the United States has been, and always will be, a nation of immigrants.
Zijie, an only child, left his parents in Hubei Province, China, in 2011 to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and joined Doug Chrissy’s research group. He could not have known then that Doug would become his lifelong friend. Think about it—he traveled 7,000 miles to begin that journey. In honoring Zijie today, it is fitting that we also recognize all who take that same journey—the countless undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and colleagues from China who choose to study here, enriching our scholarship and our lives.
In 2019, Zijie arrived at UNC, where he joined our faculty. He reminds us that UNC is truly a university of immigrants. We in Applied Physical Sciences were proud to welcome him and his family to Chapel Hill. We were thrilled, as we always are, to welcome newcomers into our academic family and our community.
It was not supposed to be like this.
Several years ago, I was giving a tour of our Makerspace to a group of trustees. From the back of the group, Professor Rudy Colloredo-Mansfeld, an anthropology professor, called out in his deep, sonorous voice: “It’s a totem.” I had been explaining how we made pens from fallen branches of the Davie Poplar tree, which are treasured by UNC alumni. Rudy explained that a totem is a symbol of family, an object imbued with extraordinary meaning. A simple pen, but one made from a cherished tree, carries all of who we are at Carolina.
We all grieve differently. My response is to make something. In one sense, it feels futile—as if objects can address a loss so profound. But what else can we do? Where there is no sense, we must create meaning. And so came the idea of three benches: one for Carolina, one for Zijie’s family in Apex, and one for his parents in Hubei, China. Yet a bench alone is not a totem. The totem lies in the hands that shape it, and in the tree itself.
Our friends at Carolina Tree Heritage—Susan Cohen, Tom Bittel, and Mike Everhart—made sure that one of Carolina’s great trees would have a second life. They gave us the wood from a majestic post oak, Quercus stellata. This tree sprouted around 1770 and grew year after year under the Carolina blue sky. It was here when UNC welcomed its first students in 1793. Students over generations touched it, leaned on it, found shade under it, even left scars on it. Those scars remain in the wood—dark marks wrapped by new growth, forever part of the tree.
This tree, like all of us, carried its scars into its heartwood. Year after year, ring upon ring, the scars became part of its essence. And so it is with us. Zijie—never forgotten, always in our hearts.
Working with the wood of a 250-year-old tree is humbling. You do not judge it for its scars or imperfections—you are simply grateful. The oak carries within it the breath of centuries. From Susan, Mike, Tom, and all of APS, this bench is our totem.
Zijie loved nature. We have a wonderful picture of him fishing at a lake in upstate New York during graduate school. He and I often talked about how the U.S. and China think of time differently: Americans see our 250-year-old tree in relation to the American Revolution, while China’s history is measured in dynasties stretching back thousands of years. I wonder if Zijie went fishing among the oaks of Jingmen, and whether he had a favorite Chinese oak tree. I like to think he would love resting on a bench made from a Carolina tree, under the Carolina blue sky.
Here, I will continue to talk with him—
about climbing trees in Philadelphia and Jingmen,
about light, about time, and about kindness.
Thank you！