Vice-Chancellor's Report 1978-82

gatherings on its campus. Several world-renowned scholars were invited to spend time at the University to talk to the students and the faculty. As the University gained in maturity, so did its academics, whose persistent hard work, often carried out under difficult conditions, now began to bear fruit. This is evident from the list of publications (Appendix 8 )， which shows rapid increase of annual output throughout the period under review. Physically, the University started to fill out some of the wide- open space on its campus with the completion of the Basic Medical Sciences Building, the Fong Shu Chuen Building, the Li Dak Sum Building, the Sir Run Run Shaw Hall and the University Sports Centre. Several student hostels and administrative buildings were also added to existing ones. For some academic departments which had experienced almost continuous growth before 1978, the four years between 1978 and 1982 were indeed a period of review and consolidation. Such a pause was necessary and indeed beneficial as it enabled us to improve staff-student ratio, the senior staff ratio for teachers, and to reflect on matters such as course structure and examination schemes. Overall, the growth in student numbers between 1978 and 1982 was quite modest. Undergraduate enrolment rose marginally from 4,365 in 1978/79 to 4,431 in 1981/82, while postgraduate student numbers went up from 820 in 1978/79 to 935 i n 1981/82, yielding a total of 5 ， 366 students by mid 1982. The growth over four years was 3.5%, amounting to an annual compound rate of only 1.2%. But numbers alone do not tell the full story. Although only 60 students were admitted into the Pre- Clinical Year One of the Faculty of Medicine, an enormous amount of work was involved in starting a new faculty. The same was true of Part-time Degree Programmes. But now that the foundation had been laid for a balanced academic programme for these two major developments, further growth will become more rapid. After this period of relative quiescence, which was what the University needed to concentrate on laying a f i rm foundation for the Faculty of Medicine, the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee (UPGC) has asked the University to plan on the assumption of a 4% annual growth from 1984 through 1988. From a base of 5,490 students in 1983/84 (exclusive of part-time undergraduate students), the student population is projected to reach 6,420 students by the end of the 1985-88 triennium. In 52