Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1978

H. E. the Chancellor's Speech Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Pao Sui-Loong, ladies and gentlemen , thanks to the generosity of the Pao family we are today celebrating the opening of this fine building— another step forward in the develop ment of the Chinese University. Chung Chi College has been on this site since 1956, but the start of construction work on the Uni versity campus dates from December 1967 when my predecessor Sir David Trench, planted a tree to com memorate the event. I say planted, but I am advised that in fact it had to be put in a small hole chiselled out of crumbling rock and grit, because the site we are now standing on was then a wilderness of exposed rock and dust. That was almost exactly ten short and very busy years ago. By any standards, since then the progress has been remarkable. By mid-1973, only five-and-a-half years after that first ceremony, the Chinese Univer sity was assembled on this one site: and we are now looking at a large modern University substantially completed in a mere ten years. It has been a tremen dous task in which very many people have played a part— architects, administrators, contractors and officers in the Government and the UPGC: but undoubtedly the main burden has fallen on the Uni versity Buildings Office and the Vice-Chancellor him self. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge publicly an outstanding achievement by all concerned. The capital cost amounts to about $240m. Government funds account for about $205m of this and private funds about $34.5m— a very large sum of money to have been raised from private sources. The Government, the community at large, and this Univer sity are greatly in their debt for so public spirited a response to the needs of higher education in Hong Kong. Included in them is of course the Pao family represented by Mr. Pao Sui-loong and his son Dr. Pao Yue-kong, without whose aid this building could not have been built at this stage. It was originally envisaged that this would be part of a joint project comprising three buildings but the financial recession of 1975 brought plans to a halt. The Pao family then stepped in and by more than doubling their original contribu tion enabled the plans to be re-started and the building completed. The building will cater for Business and Public Administration, and Economic Research and, initially at least, will also house administrative offices for the Graduate School and for the embryonic School of Medicine. I am sure it is a source of particular satis faction to all of us that the Pao family should have ensured that this building catering for Business Administration should have opened during the Vice- Chancellorship of Dr. l i Choh-Ming, whose personal interest and preeminence in this discipline are of such wide renown, and that it should also house other vocational disciplines in which he has been particularly concerned. It is also most appropriate that the teaching of Business Administration should be associated with the Pao family as I suspect few have much to teach them about the practical side of business adminis tration. Their extraordinary capacity for hard work, clear thought and intense self-discipline, should inspire those who work here and I wish them similar commercial success and family happiness. Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Pao, ladies and gentle men, I have much pleasure in declaring open the Sui- Loong Pao Building. Dr. Y. K. Pao's Speech Your Excellency, Dr. li, Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me first of all thank His Excellency the Governor and Chancellor of the University, for honouring this dedication with his presence. I know of Sir Murray's great concern for the further develop ment of education, and educational facilities in Hong Kong and he is proving this again by his agreement to preside at the Opening Ceremony for this Business Administration, Economic Research, and Public Administration Building of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. I must also thank the Vice-Chancellor, my good friend, Dr. Li Choh-Ming, at whose kind suggestion the Building is named after my father, Mr. Pao Sui- Loong, to mark the part our family has been able to play in bringing it into being. I am grateful that my father at 83 years of age is able to fully participate in this event. If I remember correctly, The Chinese University of Hong Kong was officially inaugurated in 1963. In only fourteen years of dedicated operation, the University has taken its proud place among the region's well known educational establishments and is one of the best in terms of campus facilities, quality of curriculums provided and standard of its faculty. 13

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