Bulletin No. 1, 2024

Sociologist Ambrose King Yeo-chi was the youngest professor ever to head New Asia College. Ultimately, he became the oldest to take up the post of the University’s Vice-Chancellor. In his 34 years at CUHK, going back almost to its establishment, Professor King helped steer the University through many challenges, including reform of its governance structure in the 1970s and a period of drastic government funding cuts after the SARS outbreak in 2003. As Vice- Chancellor, he also oversaw the establishment of the School of Law. In the 1960s, he was a university lecturer while working as a deputy chief editor for the Commercial Press of Taiwan. With a research interest in the modernisation of China, he was much sought after as a speaker by local universities. His book From Tradition to Modernity (1966) was a phenomenon and quickly recognised as a seminal work in Chinese studies. In 1969, when he was conducting post-doctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh in the US, Professor King was invited by Dr Choh-ming Li, founding Vice-Chancellor of CUHK, to join his team. “Dr Li impressed me with his confidence and great powers of persuasion,” Professor King recalls. “He cast the future of CUHK in a very positive light—no ordinary academic could have done that.” Professor King arrived the following year at CUHK and New Asia College, one of the new university’s three constituent colleges. He soon observed that while the College had a distinctively rich atmosphere of Chinese culture, there was a gap between Dr Li’s vision for CUHK and reality at the College. Dr Li had articulated a mission for CUHK “to combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West”, placing a strong emphasis on bilingual education. Professor King felt that this vision was not fully appreciated at the time by some of the College’s teachers and students, in particular the need for proficiency in both Chinese and English, which Professor King saw as essential to CUHK’s standing as an international university. 1 Professor Ambrose King Yeo-chi was educated in Taiwan and the US. He joined CUHK’s Department of Sociology in 1970. In 1977, he was made department chair and head of NewAsia College. He was appointed as Pro-Vice-Chancellor in 1989. In Taiwan, he was elected as a member of Academia Sinica in 1994. In 2002, Professor King became the fifth Vice- Chancellor of CUHK. He retired in 2004. P R O F I L E Rising to tough challenges   23