Newsletter No. 93

CUHK Newsletter 2 No. 93 19th September 1996 Comments from Senior Administration New Approaches to Students Affairs Work From the University Deanof Students In general, the central aim of student affairs and counselling w o rk is to facilitate the development and growth of students by working with other functional units in the University. Full use is m a de of externa! resources to provide quality support services to students and thus, the needs of both students and the University are met. How can this general direction be contextualized in our University? Over the past decade and in the decade to come, Hong Kong has been undergoing and will continue to undergo both silent and noisy changes. A new historical era is around the comer. Both the staffand students are faced with new challenges in this changing sociopolitical environment. The pressure on our students to cope with this new phase in their life is getting heavier and heavier. In what ways can student affairs and counselling practitioners, with the support of the University, help students adapt to the changes of the times and plan for their future? The task has become even more demanding since our University is also undergoing major changes due to the rapid expansion of tertiary education in the latter half of the 1980s. A much larger student population has emerged in a growing university community. With the continuous rise in the quality of teaching and research, everyone has become busier trying to excel in a competitive academic environment. The sense of alienation has correspondingly become more intense. How should student affairs and counselling practitioners contribute their service to the University? I propose to approach the issue from three directions. First, we must analyse student affairs work in the context of Hong Kong and China. The general mission of student affairs duties can only be successfully realized when our services are placed in the actual living environment of our staff and students. Their social, emotional, and intellectual conditions are real and have to be carefully considered when we plan our services. A post-colonial approach to student affairs work has to be mapped out. Secondly, our services must be designed in the context of our University, which is quite different from other tertiary institutions. Our tradition and culture are unique, and dictate special conditions for our services. A contextualized approach to student services is needed. Thirdly, our targets — the students —are notjust numbers and figures kept in the computer records. Each and every one of them is an individual, and has a world of their own. A three-dimensional approach has to be taken w h e n interacting with the students or serving them. Similarly, our staff are individuals too. T he University is peopled by unique individuals. Everyone centre and there is no one absolute centre. To facilitate communication between students and staffand bring them closer together, and to help cultivate students' identity with and commitment to the University, students affairs and counselling practitioners have to look at students and staffthree-dimensionally and pay close attention to their individual existence as persons with hopes, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. A post-modern approach to student counselling has to be designed as w e m o ve towards the twenty-first century. Kwok Siu-tong ATM Foru m An industrial forum on ' A TM Technologies and Multimedia Applications on the Internet' was organized by the Centre for Internet Exchange Technologies ofthe Department of Information Engineering on 29th August in the Ho Sin Hang Engineering Building. Internet experts were present to share their views and experiences with 140 participants, including access providers, ISPs, content providers, Internet application developers, and end users. StudentsfromXinjiang and Taiwan Visit New Asia New Asia undergraduates visited Taiwan Chung Cheng University and Xinjiang University in mainland China in December 1995 and May 1996. Their visits were repaid in July 1996 when students from the two universities participated in a symposium on 'Chinese Culture and Business Administration' organized by New Asia College. The students were also taken to places like the New Airport Core Project Exhibition Centre, the Bank of China, and the Hong Kong Productivity Council. VC Hosts Tea Recept ion f or New Staff Vice-Chancellor Prof. Arthur K. C. Li hosted a tea reception for about 100 new academic and administrative staff on Wednesday, 4th September in the foyer of Sir Run Run Shaw Hall. He gave awelcoming address and introduced the heads of major administrative and teaching units to the newcomers. NEW BOOKS Prof. Wimal Dissanayake, visiting professor to the Department of English, has published the following books: Narratives of Agency: Self-Making in China, India and Japan University of Minnesota Press ISBN 0-8166-2657-X US$21.95 Self and Deception: A Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry Wimal Dissanayake and Roger Ames, eds. State University of New York Press ISBN 0-7914-3031-6 US$24.95 Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary Wimal Dissanayake and Rob Wilson, eds. Duke University Press ISBN 0-8223-1712-5 US$18.95

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