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| College
site
Council Chairman, Sir Gordon Wu, told staff in an open
forum on 27 April that he is committed to having the new Community College
built on campus. His choice of site is the small hill between the swimming
pool and Nam Shan Yuen, which, he said, is a five-minute walk from the
campus pedestrain entrance. The University is believed to have filed an
application for a government site at Tsang Kwan O for the community college.
At the forum, Sir Gordon did not specifically say if the bid for the off-campus
site should be abandoned, but reiterated his wish to have the new College
on campus. It is expected that some government approval has to be sought
for his plan, and this needs to be fast-tracked. He also disclosed that
a building on the site of the open car park next to the Sports Complex
is in his plans to cater for an anticipated increase in student numbers
due to the switch to a four-year curriculum in a few years' time.
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| Meetings
with faculty teaching staff
In two separate one-hour sessions, held on 27 and 28 April,
Prof David Tong, Deputy President, met with close to
200 teaching staff from the Faculties of Business, Humanities and Social
Sciences, and Science and Engineering. At the first-ever "town hall"
meetings, which Prof Tong emphasized meant as a forum for staff voices
and for gathering opinions on issues relevant to the University, he posed
three questions:
Are there too many chair
professors at CityU?
Should all chair professor
teach?
Should CityU be a "teaching
only" university?
Some participants felt that
the questions were not called for because these were issues that they
believed should have resolved. Others would like to hear more about the
factual background to these queries; still others believed that, especially
for the first two questions, departments heads should be given the flexibility
to cater to their special needs.
At the end of the sessions,
participants were asked to fill out a simple questionnaire on the three
questions. Prof Tong stressed that the results of the survey are primarily
for the benefit of his work as the chief academic officer of the University.
However, if staff are interested, he will communicate the results at an
appropriate time. He also stressed that these questions were not his creation
but in the past months, these have been raised in public. He thought it
would be beneficial for the Management to know what the teaching staff
think collectively and such information will enable the Management to
make informed decisions to steer the University forward. Prof Tong also
said more "town hall" meetings will be held in the future.
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| Internal
transfer of College general grade staff
The University has urged heads of Faculty departments
and administrative units to "give serious consideration", based
on an equal opportunities principle, to applicants from the College in
their internal recruitment exercises. The University has already mandated
a hiring freeze of new administrative staff from outside, due to impending
budget constraints. Staff representatives of the two staff consultative
committees have requested that general grade staff in the College be given
priority for internal transfer when a vacancy exists in the rest of the
University.
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CityU-PolyU
collaboration
The second meeting on deeper collaboration between CityU
and PolyU met on 29 April. The working group on the issue is co-chaired
by the Deputy Presidents of the two universities, and involves about 20
senior academic and administrative staff. Four sub-groups impanelled in
the last meeting on 2 April, on taught postgraduate programmes, engineering
programmes, joint admissions, campus development and facility management
services, submitted initial reports on what collaboration is possible
and ways to proceed.
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Ranking
In the 2004 Ranking of Universities in Hong Kong, conducted
by Education18.com, a popular
local website, CityU comes first in teaching and learning, third in research
output, and fifth overall, which is one step higher than last year. The
achievements in teaching and learning correspond with the favourable comments
in last year's second round of Teaching and Learning Quality Process Review.
Advances in "research are equally impressive as CityU does not have
a medical school and is generally not treated as a "comprehensive"
university.
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TEA
plaque
On 30 April, the plaque honouring Teaching Excellence
Award winners was moved to the entrance lobby of the pedestrian "red-door"
entrance on the 3rd floor of the Academic Building.
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2004-05
budgets
The Finance Committee will meet on 4 May to consider budget
proposals for 2004-05, based on the recommendations of the Management
Board's Budget Committee. It is believed that all departments and administrative
and support units will then be informed of the indicative budgets for
planning purposes, before the Council makes a final endorsement in June.
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Conferences
"Asian-Pacific Economies: Multilateral versus Bilateral
Relationships," 19-21 May, organized by APEC Study Centre. Enquiries:
(852) 2788 8805.
"4th International Conference
on Marine Pollution and Ecotoxicology," organized by the Centre
for Coastal Pollution and Conservation, and the Department
of Biology and Chemistry, 1-5 June, CityU campus.
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Exhibition
"Early Hong Kong Eateries," until May 12, 10
am-7pm, CityU Gallery.
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