Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1993

students, in which some research staff might have a role as well. The importance of our colleges at the undergraduate level (going way beyond the provision of dormitory places) hardly needs reiteration and certainly the same would be true at the postgraduate level. Very substantial resources have to be secured for this goal to be realized, and I hope this will be among the top priorities for the University as a whole. In mooting such an idea, one is of course saying that the University should have more to offer to a postgraduate student than what a department or a faculty can provide, and it is in these areas that the Graduate School can make a contribution. CUHK has moved forcefully in fostering links outside of Hong Kong, so critical for the University as a member of the world-wide academic community. There are various formal programmes of collaboration and student exchange, with institutions on the mainland, in Taiwan, and with institutions all over the world. There are also many informal links developed through collaboration between individual staff members. Insofar as these links are to a large extent related to research, and postgraduate students are a vital link in the research team, I see postgraduate students becoming more involved in such external links. One of my own M.Phil. students was able to spend a few weeks at the Chinese Academy of Sciences last summer, and one of my Ph.D. students was able to spend a few weeks at Yale, to the tremendous benefit of both of them. There must be many examples of this type, and I cite these only because they are familiar to me personally. • Any immediate task that the Graduate School should undertake to better adapt itself to such a trend of development? • In terms of the Graduate School as an administrative unit, I believe that this is the time for a critical evaluation. The Graduate School was formed just a few years after the University came into being, at a time when teaching as well as research facilities were still dispersed among the colleges, when the number of staff, especially senior staff, was relatively small. It was right and proper that the role was one of central coordination and quality control. The widely As the University moves towards decentralization in administration ， with more authority becoming vested in the faculties ， it may be time to ask whether some of the administrative functions pertaining to postgraduate studies ought to be decentralized as well ， and whether procedures at the central level ought to be simplified. recognized quality of our higher degrees owes much to the effort in this direction of the previous deans at the helms of the Graduate School, especially that of Prof. Tam during his long tenure. Now, with the University's reputation established, teaching long centralized and research going full steam ahead, and the majority of staff experienced in supervision of postgraduate students, possibly the coordination role has become less important, and quality control increasingly a matter that could be left to the faculties with the advice of external examiners. As the University moves towards decentralization in administration, with more authority becoming vested in the faculties, it may be time to ask whether some of the administrative functions pertaining to postgraduate studies ought to be decentralized as well, and whether procedures at the central level ought to be simplified. A move in this direction has already started under the leadership of Prof. Tam, with the establishment of the Executive Committee of the Graduate Council to take over the more routine matters from the Graduate Council itself, and with some considerable streamlining of the admission procedures already in the pipeline. But the issue of decentralization is a complex matter, and the correct answer is likely to be neither a straightforward 'yes' nor a straightforward ‘no'. As dean of the Graduate School, one of my first tasks would be to try to understand the views of my colleagues on this issue, and try to work towards refinements of the present administrative arrangement that best suits this stage of the University's development.• GRADUATE SCHOOL 15