A New Era Begins 1975-78

regularly to the campus to teach, to lecture, and to confer. The University sponsors research conferences for international specialists, and establishes the International Asian Studies Programme which brings students from Western countries to the campus. To be international in the value-exchange sense, the University must first be Chinese, maintaining the integrity of its distinctive goals and programmes. The title of Section XL, “The Mountain Is Transformed", is intended to suggest a sense of the magnitude of the new campus building programme and of its extraordinary rate of growth. Just a decade ago the site was a bare sculptured rock wi th one lone building; today it is a spectacular, multi-levelled city on a hill overlooking Tolo Harbour, its bare rock steadily greening with grass, trees, and flowering shrubs. The Section includes a brief review of the building programme through 1974 and a detailed account of the buildings completed or started during the present quadrennium. The final Section is a brief epilogue, closing the story of the first fifteen years in the history of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Glancing back over this period, we may note that the theme of the story is clearly the creative power of an idea seeking continuously to find institutional expression and formal recognition. The Emerging University is devoted to its expression; A New Era Begins is devoted to its formal recognition. The idea, of course, is the conception of a distinctive modern university, fully defined in the last two Reports of the Vice-Chancellor. The new Ordinance begins a new era; a f i rm foundation has been laid for the future development of The Chinese University. The University Council has wisely chosen for the new era a Vice-Chancellor who is personally committed to the enduring goals and values which have shaped The Chinese University to this day. He will ably lead the academic community in its challenging task of implementing those goals to the fullest, thus realizing the aspirations of The Chinese University. For the first fifteen years now ended, we in The Chinese University humbly express our deep gratitude for the strong and sympathetic support of Government, and for the continuing encouragement and generous support of many individuals, organizations, and foundations. A ll of these in their respective roles participated significantly in the emergence of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, which now begins a new era of service to countless generations of Chinese students to come. 7