Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

An A d d r e s s by Prof. Amartya Kumar Sen On behalf of all the honorary graduates, I would like to thank The Chinese University of Hong Kong for the wonderful honour you have s o kindly bestowed on us. We greatly value, Vice- Chancellor, our association wit h this distinguished university resulting from this conferment. We are most grateful. It is also a privilege to j o in the non-honorary graduands — the ‘real’ graduands 一 on this wonderful occasion. Let me congratulate yo u all for not only getting your respective degrees, but more importantly, for the work that you have successfully completed for which the degrees are just rewards. It is a magic moment, when the hard work of study and learning is all done, and the reward is solidly in your hand. Let me also point out that you have managed to get your degree in this millennium 一 just in the nick of time. One mont h later and you would have missed it! You are not only the last batch of graduands in this century, you are also the last batch of fellow millennium-graduates t o nearly all the great scientists and scholars whose works we read and whose achievements shape our lives. The next batch of graduands will belong to a different millennium (a different, untried, unknown millennium). Even i f the computers manage to spell their names right (after defeating the Y 2 K bug), they would not be able to boast of having graduated i n the same millennium as Newton and Darwin and Einstein. How important is university education? Ma rk Twain has described cauliflower as ' no t h i ng but cabbage w i t h a college education'. This may well be an overestimate o f the benefits of going to a college.