CUHK: Five Decades in Pictures

96 第五個十年： 2003–2012 T he year 2003 rightfully went down in the University’s annals as one of the most difficult yet glorious years. Between late 2002 and summer 2003, an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in South China and Hong Kong almost reached pandemic levels. The University’s frontline medical professionals responded with honour and courage in the selfless fight against this hitherto unknown and treacherous disease. The battle was soon won by the hard work, foresight and inherent optimism of the University community. Alongside efforts at recuperation, CUHK spent the middle years of the decade formulating its long-term vision for growth. This encompassed provisions for the building of new Colleges and other academic facilities for the reversion to a four-year normative curriculum in September 2012. With the retirement of Professor Ambrose King, Professor Lawrence J. Lau was appointed Vice- Chancellor of the University in 2004, heralding a series of strategic planning, focused research investment schemes and institutional development initiatives for subsequent years. Though the Chinese University had always prided itself on its bilingual heritage, it was during this time that this translated into new directions for student recruitment and academic exchange. Positioning itself as a university of international character, the University redoubled its efforts at recruiting students from out of Hong Kong including reaching deep into the vast talent pool on the mainland. In 2005, the School of Law became the latest addition to Hong Kong’s legal education landscape. It was renamed the Faculty of Law in 2008, in recognition of its expanded stature. The Faculty emphasizes independent research and helps students to develop a broad perspective through exposure to different traditions of law in Hong Kong, China, the Asia-Pacific region, and the world. The University began establishing new Colleges from 2006 in preparation to house the additional cohort of 3,000 undergraduate students in 2012. The new Colleges that would join the University’s unique collegiate family were Morningside College, S.H. Ho College, C.W. Chu College, Wu Yee Sun College, and Lee Woo Sing College. Fully residential, these Colleges uphold and upgrade the well-cherished tradition of CUHK’s whole-person education through closer student–teacher interactions and various service and experiential learning opportunities. In 2008, CUHK completed the first ever quality audit conducted by the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Committee (UGC). It received from QAC 11 commendations and eight affirmations of, among other things, its high quality student learning experience, the level of academic support and pastoral care and related quality assurance mechanism. The professionalism and dedication of our teaching force were given further recognition by the bestowal of the UGC Award for Teaching Excellence on CUHK teachers for two consecutive years since the scheme’s inauguration in 2011. In the last decade members of the University continued to render assistance to victims of natural disaster around the world. For example, after the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan that took tens of thousands of lives, CUHK lost no time in mobilizing its financial and human capital