Bulletin Report of The Commission on The Chinese University of Hong Kong March 1976

In the organisation of its teaching, too, there have been significant developments. Whereas the first Commission envisaged first and second year teaching in Science being conducted in College classrooms, all Science teaching is now concentrated in the Science Centre. Inter-collegiate teaching, to the importance of which the Commission drew attention as a means of opening to all students the whole range of academic talent which the University could attract, has been introduced on a greatly increased scale, especially since the 1969 allocation of funds by the University Grants Committee called for economy through the pooling of College resources. In 1973/4 there were 457 inter-collegiate courses, spread among the various faculties, compared with 7 in 1964/5. 5. The growth in the undergraduate programme has been matched at the postgraduate level. Whereas the first Fulton Commission envisaged a slow, if steady, development of postgraduate work, the University initiated a Graduate School in 1966/7 and this by December 1975 had increased its enrolment sixfold to 190. 11 of the School's 14 divisions are concerned with the "specialisation of liberal education" (to quote the Vice-Chancellor's Report for 1970-74), while the remaining 3, Business Administration, Education and Electronics, are indicative of the University's commitment to produce qualified manpower for specific needs within the community. To promote research by staff and postgraduate students the University has set up a number of Institutes, such as those of Chinese Studies, Social Studies and the Humanities, and Science and Technology, and Centres in such areas as Economic and Social Research, Mass Communications, East Asian Studies, Marine Science and Computing. Through the activities of these Institutes and Centres, as indeed through the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, the University is providing various forms of public service to the community. 6. In summary, therefore, the first 12 years of the University's life have been characterised by great development. Happily this has been accompanied by increasing international recognition. We readily, therefore, pay tribute to all those who have contributed to this achievement and congratulate them on the success which has attended their efforts. Inevitably in such an exercise there have to be priorities and phases. In this first phase the accent has been on providing the basic resources, human and material, necessary for the University to fulfil its role. A fewfigures will illustrate the magnitude of what has been achieved in this regard. In 1974 the value of the fixed assets of the University at their original costs, including properties acquired by the Foundation Colleges prior to the establishment of the University, amounted to no less than HK$182 million and the annual recurrent income exceeded HK$54 million. The full-time teaching staff of the University in the grade of Assistant Lecturer and above has been built up from 99 at the time of the first Fulton Commission to 262 at the time of our visit. Library resources have been greatly strengthened so that at the time of our visit the library holdings throughout the University amounted to some 480,000 volumes (including duplicates), 60%, of them in Chinese. What, however, the figures only hint at is the enormous effort which has been devoted, under the Vice-Chancellor's inspired leadership, to the fostering of community relations, to fund-raising and to planning, without which this remarkable success could not have been achieved. 7. This development has not, however, been without consequence. The public purse has been generous and private benefactors munificent, but, as costs have mounted, the call for all reasonable economy has become insistent. ExpansionJ too, has brought its own problems of organisation and relationships. In these circumstances the Vice-Chancellor on 12 February 1974, with the endorsement of the Administrative and Planning Committee and the concurrence of the Senate and Council, appointed a Working Party on