Bulletin Number Five 1983

postgraduate diplomas; the research work o f its teachers has also borne fru it: from official sources it can be seen that their publication record is, in com parison w ith that o f their colleagues in similar institu tions, indeed impressive whether in terms o f calibre or volume. Such progress comes from years o f hard work by both staff and students, and we should all be justly proud o f it. A t the same time, we cannot, o f course, fail to bear in mind the steadfast support generously given by the Government and concerned community leaders which has made our work possible, and, above all, the great vision o f Dr. Choh-Ming Li, the first Vice-Chancellor, who had w ith far-sightedness shaped and guided the development o f the University throughout its formative years. Your Excellency, My Lords, Ladies and Gentle men, this University has been made from the dreams as well as the to il and sweat o f many Chinese scholars, who had trodded a long and arduous path in winning Government and community support to their cause. Its founding fathers and ourselves have set two goals for this University: it is to become a truly modem university o f international outlook and standing; and it is also to be an institution o f learning worthy o f the grand tradition o f Chinese scholarship and culture. These two goals are o f equal importance, even though the demands they make on us are very different indeed. My colleagues and students must have, throughout the past twenty years, increasingly come to feel the true magnitude o f their task in trying to come to terms w ith their commitment to these two goals; at the same time, I think we have also come to realize that The Chinese University o f Hong Kong would be meaningless unless we can live up to that commitment. Ladies and Gentlemen, I dare say, not to understand this basic point is not to comprehend the University, and probably not to comprehend the impulse and yearning deep down in the heart o f the new generation now growing up in Hong Kong aswell. The two goals I mentioned have both immediate and long-term implications for the development o f the University. As epitomized by Dr. Clark Kerr, the modem university has an inexorable tendency o f developing into the multiversity. One o f the essential characteristics o f a modem university is therefore the comprehensive range o f courses o f studies it has to offer. In establishing the Faculty o f Business Admini­ stration and then the Faculty o f Medicine, the Uni­ versity has already taken decisive steps along this direction; however, our courses are yet by no means comprehensive, and the introduction o f new courses o f studies remains for us a task o f high priority. A t present, the University is offering engineering education in the Faculty o f Science through the Electronics Department and the Computer Science Department, both o f which have developed a series o f degree programmes. The degrees they offer have now already won international recognition; and the research work they pursue have also shown good results. It is therefore natural for the University to build on that foundation and further strengthen the engineering education it has to offer. This can be done by intro­ ducing in the Faculty of Science new undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in engineering-related subjects such as communications engineering, auto­ mation engineering, informatics, etc. Such a thrust by the Faculty o f Science into engineering education would have followed the modem trend o f increasing convergence between technological development and scientific advances, and would also be in the interest o f the industries o f Hong Kong which, in order to maintain its leading position among export countries on the western Pacific basin, w ill soon have to make the transition from the labour-intensive mode to the technological-intensive mode. I am therefore hopeful that this development plan o f the University would meet w ith support from Government and industry, and that it would actually go forward w ithin the next four or five years. The eminent role o f research and postgraduate education is another essential characteristic o f a modem university. And at this University we have in ­ deed pursued a vigorous policy o f promoting research: am6ng our very first concerns assoon asthe University started were the establishment o f the Graduate School and three Research Institutes, and the in tro ­ duction o f a system o f assessment to encourage active academic work; it was also high on our priority to provide postgraduate students w ith good hostel accommodation and generous financial aid in order that they may study and do research full-time. It is somewhat disappointing that these efforts have yet to win the public recognition and support which they so amply deserve. That is why the University has to resort to private donations and to savings from recurrent funds essentially provided on the basis o f under­ graduate teaching needs in order to give support to the research work o f its academics. And it is therefore not surprising that the number o f our postgraduate students (o f which more than half are furthermore students reading for Diploma in Education) has not grown beyond 17% o f the student body, while the corresponding fraction for leading universities in the world has already risen to 50% or higher; and that our direct expenditure on research is only 2.4% o f our budget, whereas for universities in advanced countries this figure is likely to be 6% to 8%. Public neglect in such a vital area as research is 8 NEWS