President's Speech at the Nineteenth Congregation

Address by Professor H K CHANG, President

Chairman and Members of Council, Honoured Guests, Graduates and Colleagues:

Standing before you today, I feel happy, proud and hopeful.

I am happy because the University is celebrating its most bountiful harvest ever, the graduation of 7,556 students. From what I have seen outside this hall and what I see on your faces now, I can feel how happy you all are. And that makes me happy. Let me extend a warm welcome to all of you and offer you my congratulations.

I am proud because City University, a young and dynamic university, has made tremendous achievements as a higher education institution and stupendous contributions to the society in the past 20 years. I salute all the staff and students who have made this University better in the past 20 years.

I feel hopeful because this University has made very significant transformations, academically, organizationally, and psychologically. Looking into the future, I am hopeful that we as a community will be able to pull our strengths together and scale new heights.

Under the title “Meeting the Challenge of Change”, our Strategic Plan for 2003–2008 was adopted by the Senate and the Council last year. The Plan mandates that we align our activities along the axis that links professional education and applied research; that we strive to be internationally competitive in all our academic endeavours; and that we help Hong Kong become a centre of higher education, in China and internationally. At the beginning of this year, the University Grants Committee gave us a new role statement that represents a strong endorsement of the role we defined for ourselves in our Strategic Plan.

Thus we began celebrating our 20th anniversary this year on a very upbeat note. To help us remember what the world was like when City University was born 20 years ago and to contrast our proud achievements today with our humble origins, let me recount some facts.

The year 1984 saw three major events that have a bearing on our well-being. First, the Prime Minister of India, Mrs Indira Ghandi, was killed by two of her bodyguards who were Sikhs and a series of violent reprisals between Hindus and Sikhs ensued. Second, athletes from the Mainland of China performed excellently in the Summer Olympic Games held in Los Angeles and captured an impressive number of gold medals. Third, the Chinese Government and the British Government signed a joint declaration on the peaceful return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The third event had the most direct impact on the people of Hong Kong.

Against this backdrop, City Polytechnic started its education mission in a rented building in Mong Kok, with some 1,200 students enrolled in 9 academic programmes and 460 staff members. It was the beginning of an outstanding record of expansion in size as well as elevation in quality.

In 1986, at the first graduation ceremony, 115 students received their diplomas and higher diplomas. This year, at the 19th Congregation, 7,556 graduates are receiving academic awards including 70 doctoral degrees and 1,356 master’s degrees. City University now offers 145 programmes. It has some 22,500 full-time and part-time students and a total staff of nearly 2,900. Of roughly 800 academic staff members, over 500 have doctoral degrees from major institutions overseas and 150 have held full-time academic appointments in at least one university overseas. The strength of City University’s academic programmes and the quality of its academic staff are most definitely beyond the wildest dreams of the founders of City Polytechnic in 1984. What we have gone through is truly a “City Legend”.

We have every reason to be proud as we celebrate our achievements this year, but we have no reason to be complacent because the entire world has been moving forward in the past 20 years.

Amazing advancements in science and technology have changed the lives of almost every person on this planet. In 1984, personal computers had just become popular and a simple personal computer cost around HK$30,000. Few people knew about the Internet and few software packages existed. Today, personal computers have become a necessity in schools, offices and homes in almost every city in the world. A computer that is 600 times faster with a memory that is more than 100 times larger than a typical PC in 1984 costs about HK$6,000. The amount of information that one can find on the Internet and the ease with which one can download such information and manipulate the multimedia data are just stupefying.

Bulky hand-held wireless phones only began to appear in the market in 1984, costing about HK$30,000 each. One can now buy a miniature multi-function mobile phone for less than HK$1,000. The number of mobile phones in Hong Kong must exceed the number of its residents and, even with a late start, the Mainland today has about 400 million mobile phones.

In 1984, Hong Kong’s per capita gross domestic product at the current market price was HK$47,700, with about one-quarter due to manufacturing. Last year, per capita GDP was HK$179,300, with only 4.5% due to manufacturing. In the Mainland, despite a huge and mostly rural population and uneven levels of development, the pace of economic and social advancement has been even more impressive. Whereas Hong Kong’s per capita GDP grew about 3.8 times in the past 20 years, that of the entire Mainland grew more than 5 times. It was largely from the phenomenal growth and beneficial policies of the Mainland that Hong Kong derived most of its impetus for growth during the period.

Given the changes that have taken place in the past 20 years in the world and the tremendous progress that has been made on the Mainland, particularly along the east coast, what challenges face our University in the next 20 years?

In my speech at the 1996 Congregation on the eve of Hong Kong’s return to China, I said: “Among the many challenges one can think of, the one with the greatest long-term effect is the education of our young. As Hong Kong gradually integrates with the expanding economy of the Mainland and at the same time participates more fully in the global economy, the demands on the knowledge and skills of our workforce will indeed be very great. Economic realities change rapidly; technologies develop at a blinding speed, and the total amount of knowledge doubles every two and a half years. How should we then develop our greatest asset, our young people, so that they can face up to the challenges of our times in general and those particular to Hong Kong?”

I believe these words are still valid today. In educating our young people, we must take full advantage of our position in Hong Kong as the most internationalized city of China and play our role as a conduit for knowledge transmission and a nexus for human resource development. We should try to recruit as many Mainland students as is practical and also welcome on campus as many foreign students as possible so that our young people will be familiar with their own country as well as with new developments in the world. By serving as a conduit and a nexus, we can help our neighbouring provinces reach a higher level of economic and social development, and at the same time secure Hong Kong’s own position in both the national and international contexts.

As far as our University is concerned, this role can be fulfilled only if the staff and students are fully convinced of our role and our mission, and are willing to put in sustained efforts. Whether we have the wisdom and stamina to stay the course charted in our Strategic Plans of 1997 and 2003 will be determined by the actions of all staff and students in the next 20 years.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we examine some of the young and successful universities around the world today, we will see that it takes approximately 40 years for a new institution of higher learning to become mature and well-respected. The University of California in San Diego was founded in 1962; the University of New South Wales got its name in 1958; the University of Warwick was established in 1965. Closer to home, the Chinese University of Hong Kong came into being in 1963. These universities shared some similar characteristics. First, they were founded in a region with long periods of stability and prosperity. Second, they had the vision to break away from their local confines and were willing to compete at an international level. Third, they recruited many excellent scholars and let them teach the students by their own examples. Fourth, the real test of a successful university, a full generation of graduates demonstrated the worth of their education by making important contributions to the society.

Graduates and Colleagues, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary with deserved pride, we should realize that we will not know whether our University’s achievements to date have stood the test of time until our 40th anniversary in 2024. Only then will we know whether we can proclaim that “City University of Hong Kong is now internationally recognized as a leading university in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Dear Graduates, our future depends not only on hard work by the staff but also, and more importantly, on the performance of successive classes of graduates including yourselves. It is no exaggeration to say that on your shoulders lies the reputation and success of our University. For your own sake and for the sake of your alma mater, I hope you will all do your best to contribute to your community, your country and humankind.

Standing here, happy, proud and hopeful, I wish to offer a suggestion to all of you in the hope that it will become a part of our collective memory of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of our University. I suggest that you memorize two quotations, one in English and one in Chinese. As you leave the campus later today via the tunnel leading to Festival Walk, you will see, on the left wall of the tunnel just a few steps from the entrance, a quotation by Henry David Thoreau, an American thinker, who lived in the 1800s. It reads: “Go confidently in the direction of your dream. Live the life you have imagined.” A few steps further on the same side, you will see a quotation from Lao Zi, who was born around 600 BC: “勝人者有力，自勝者強。” (He who overcomes others is forceful; he who overcomes himself is strong.)

Ladies and gentlemen, both as individuals and collectively, let us go confidently in the direction of our dreams and overcome ourselves to become strong. If we all memorize these quotes and pledge ourselves to act accordingly, our lives shall be richly rewarded and our success shall be as we have imagined.

See you at the 40th Anniversary of City University of Hong Kong!