Building a university : the story of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Abstract

Building A University the story of the Hong Kong University of science and technology Written by Paulette Flahavin Executive Editor’ Priscilla Ching Chung Art Direction and Design Thomas W K Ng Design Production Bobby Sham and Catherine Tse Photography: Kerun Ip, Anthony Chung And Lee Ka-sing An aerial view of the completed Phase I Constructions of Phase II continues. The centre campus radiates from the artrium Chapter One Vision and will Chapter two Function and harmony Chapter three Inspiration and commitment

MESSAGE FROM THE GOVERNOR AND CHANCELLOR The new Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is an institution in which Hong Kong can take pride. It is a demonstration of our commitment to tertiary education and to the value Hong Kong places on science and technology as a powerful contributor to economic growth. The speed with which the project has been turned from a plan into a working university in a superb new building is a credit to all those involved. My best wishes to all the staff and students who have the privilege of being pioneer members of Hong Kong's newest university-the University of Science and Technology. Sir David Wilson MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL

the Opening of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is a proud moment for Hong Kong. Hong Kong has, once again, done what many had said was impossible to do. We have planned, designed, constructed, organised and opened a university for the 21st century in five years. The admission of the first class of some 700 undergraduate and postgraduate students this month is the culmination of the co-operative efforts of thousands of people in both the private and public sectors. It is also the beginning of a new academic enterprise. For the record, let me take a brief look at what has been accomplished. The Planning Committee for the Third University in Hong Kong was formed in September 1986. Within 18 months it had decided on the university's name, located its beautiful campus site, mapped out its growth up to the year 2,000, conducted an architectural competition for the campus design, decided on a three-phase construction programme, prepared the draft bill for the university ordinance and recruited the first Vice-Chancellor. After the University's inauguration in April 1988, tremendous effort was directed worldwide to recruit academic staff. At the same time, the Jockey Club Project Management Team was overseeing the design and construction of the campus, and a nucleus of staff was planning and building up the corporate infrastructure for the University. Today we have a high-tech campus set in an environment of natural beauty. We have advanced lecture theatres, laboratories, workshops and other facilities. We have the latest scientific and technological equipment. And most important, we have assembled a large group of highly dedicated academics who are leaders in diversified fields of science, engineering, business and management, humanities and social science. Looking ahead, in the next five years, the University will grow to a student body of 7,000, of which some 30% will be at postgraduate level. Our next challenge is to fulfil the University's mission. We must produce graduates who are competent professionals and caring citizens. We must pursue world-class research to create new knowledge. We must provide expert and consultant services to both the public and private sectors to assist in the economic and social development of the territory. The University, I am confident, will in time be a world-class tertiary institution of benefit not only to Hong Kong, but also to China and the Pacific-Asia region-and eventually the world. Sir Sze-Yuen Chung MESSAGE FROM THE VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRESIDENT It is difficult to express just how much this moment means to me, and to the many colleagues who have laboured for a long time to make the University's Opening possible. Merely five years ago, an enlightened leadership in Hong Kong shared with the public their dream of a new university, one that would dedicate its teaching and research to the territory's economic development and continued prosperity. Hundreds of us have since answered the call, and have joined force to make that dream a reality. The Opening of this University is the outcome of many parallel efforts. Thanks to Government and The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, we now have an imposing but practical physical plant on a site of sweeping natural beauty. Thanks to the community leaders who serve selflessly on the University's Council, the patrons who seeded our research institutes, and numerous distinguished international advisors, we have been able to assemble a first class academic staff drawn from leading research institutions around the world. Thanks to the media, a supportive public, and a hard-working administrative staff, our inaugural class of students turned out to be truly outstanding young men and women. It is a time for celebration. An Opening is but a beginning. Real challenges and tasks lie ahead. Within five years we are to become a full-size university of 7,000 students and nearly 700 academic staff. Despite the momentum, it will take near-miracles to sustain both the rate of growth and the high quality. Our founding faculty will have tested themselves in a new environment against worldwide research standards, the needs of Hong Kong's industry and commerce, and the expectations of society. Our early graduates will have unfurled the University's flag in the real world-their accomplishments a true measure of our ultimate success. It is a time to contemplate. With this volume, we take a backward glance. We pause for a moment of celebration and contemplation. Then we push on towards new horizons. Professor Chia-Wei Woo The building of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is a story set against a dramatically shifting backdrop. In less than six years, Hong Kong's sovereignty will be restored to China. The implications of this political transition are impossible to know with any certainty. Doubt has impelled many of the territory's monied and educated to seek a new nationality. The second and, some say, more pressing transition Hong Kong faces is economic. Over the past decade, its economic base has been veering away from industries dependent on cheap labour to more technological, service-based industries that need highly skilled workers. As one academic puts it, "We're no longer in the business of making plastic buckets for the United States and Europe." At the same time that Hong Kong has priced itself out of the competitive pool of traditional manufacturing processes, it has not kept pace with technological advancements. The other "Little Dragons"-Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore-have invested heavily in technology. Taiwan and Singapore spend 1.5-2.5% of their Gross Domestic Product on research. South Korea spends 3% of its GDP on research. It is not surprising that Hong Kong industry's use of technology is judged to be at least 10 years behind these countries when Hong Kong spends a paltry 0.05% of its GDP on research. "If we succeed in transforming Hong Kong to a technology-based economy, the impact of 1997 will diminish. If we fail, whatever happens in 1997 won't matter any more. We will have lost our prosperity," says Professor Chia-Wei Woo, the founding Vice-Chancellor and President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). HKUST is evidence of Hong Kong's determination to succeed in meeting the challenges of 1997 and beyond. Its stated objective is to advance the economic well-being of the territory through teaching, research and service in the fields of science, engineering and management. The building of HKUST is a story of people with vision and stubborn will. Major investment in human infrastructure The story begins with the late Sir Edward Youde. He will be remembered as the Hong Kong Governor who rode out the storm of the drafting of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong. In 1984, Britain and China signed the document that spelled out the return of Britain's last colony to China on 1 July 1997. The Joint Declaration guarantees that Hong Kong's capitalistic ways will continue unaltered for 50 years and that the people of Hong Kong will govern the Special Administrative Region, as Hong Kong is to be known. Sir Edward should also be remembered as the Governor who met the political uncertainties of his day with a call for major investment in Hong Kong's human infrastructure. It was Governor Youde who pushed hard for the idea of a third university, a science and technological university for the 21st century. "He was extremely interested in the education of young people in Hong Kong," his wife, Lady Pamela Youde, says. "He felt that Hong Kong was lacking in the area of science and technology and that kind of expertise was necessary to make Hong Kong more of a powerhouse and more of a leader for China." 7 The late Sir Edzcard Youde The life-long student of Chinese language, literature and history envisioned a university emphasising science, technology, management and business studies. "Of course this was not something he could have done alone. He discussed this idea with many people and as soon as he knew it had real support of the Hong Kong people he pushed for it," Lady Youde recalls. Sir Sze-Yuen Chung, who at the time was Senior Member of the Executive Council and a powerful voice of industry, was the first to support the idea of a third university. Sir s.y.'s voice has carried weight in Hong Kong for a long time and for good reason. In the 1950s, both the Korean War and the isolation of China from the world effectively ended Hong Kong's role as an entrepot of Chinese goods. Sir S.Y. was among the first group of farsighted men and women who set up manufacturing companies in Hong Kong with the aim of making goods for export. People said the idea of industrialising Hong Kong was preposterous as the territory had too small of a domestic market to fuel a manufacturing base. And producing goods for export only was too risky a venture. That Hong Kong is today the world's 11th global trading partner is a testament to the vision and dogged determination of Sir S.Y. and others like him. A new generation of manpower Industries in Hong Kong required trained personnel. In the late 1960s, Sir S.Y., then a Legislative Councillor, began speaking in the Legislative Council about the need to expand tertiary technical education. The Government responded with the building of the Hong Kong Polytechnic. As industry and its demand for more trained personnel grew in the 1970s, Sir S. Y. again called for tertiary expansion. The City Polytechnic of Hong Kong was built in the first half of the 1980s to meet the demand. Sir S.Y. was a leader in the planning of both of the polytechnics and was the first chairman of their councils when they were established. "Now we need a new generation of manpower," Sir S.Y. says. "In 1984 we knew that in 13 years Hong Kong and China would be one country, and that previous boundaries would be removed and we would enter into a new horizon where the advantages of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta could be integrated," he says. The economic integration of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta began when China opened its door to the outside world and began encouraging foreign investment in the early 1980s. Hong Kong industries wasted no time in taking advantage of China's vast pool of Low wage labour. Today Hong Kong manufacturers employ about 2.5 million workers in China as compared with 750,000 in Hong Kong. Ten years ago, Hong Kong industries employed virtually no one in China. Sir S.Y. says, "We saw this trend and knew that the bulk of manufacturing would be in China and Hong Kong would take a different role ... Hong Kong would mainly provide the brainpower." In September 1985, the Executive Council took a major step toward meeting the need for a new generation of manpower. It asked the Government's tertiary advisory body, the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee (UPGC), for advice on a third university. A shortcoming of Hong Kong's education system has been that, until very recently, only 8 6% of secondary school leavers could go to university in Hong Kong, compared with 33% in South Korea and close to 50% in the United States. Wanted: one academic of distinction Not only was Hong Kong losing its best and brightest through emigration, but the severely limited size of its tertiary institutions forced many students to go abroad to study, most never to return. The UPGC saw that existing institutions would not be able to cope with the need for more graduate manpower. It was time, then, for a new university. Acting on the UPGC's advice, the Executive Council on 18 March 1986 accepted that Hong Kong should have a new science and technological university. The Governor ordered that a planning committee be set up to work out in detail its establishment. Two months later, Governor Youde appointed Sir S.Y. as chairman of the Planning Committee for the Third University and Ian F. C. Macpherson, then Secretary for Transport, as the Committee's secretary-general. By late spring, Sir•S.Y. and the Governor had identified most of the people they wanted on the Committee, including representatives from local industry and commerce, local academics and educational administrators, and overseas academics. "But they were very anxious to have an American academic of distinction in the science or engineering field. This was the missing person," Mr Macpherson says. Professor Chia-Wei Woo, President of San Francisco State University and a theoretical physicist of repute, was recommended as a potential candidate. "Professor Woo was the first Chinese occupying the presidency of a major American university," Sir S.Y. says. San Francisco State University has a student population of about 26,000, of which more than one-fifth are Asian. Mr Macpherson went to San Francisco to meet Professor Woo and to see if he would be interested in joining the Planning Committee. "Looking back on it I really was pretty brave because I knew nothing about academic matters and here I was, as it were, in the lion's den. He was very friendly, very receptive, listened to what I had to say, very politely responded and to our great pleasure joined the Committee," Mr Macpherson says. Prettiest site in all of Hong Kong The Planning Committee met for the first time in September 1986. The Government briefed the Committee on its intentions for the new university-that it was to open its doors sometime between 1994-97, and that by the year 2000, it was to provide places for 7,000 full and part-time students, with room to expand to 10,OQO students. It was the Committee's job to answer several fundamental questions, including: What to name the university? Where to build it? What should it teach? The Committee asked the public to suggest names. The death of Governor Youde on 4 December 1986, led some people to suggest the university be named after him. "I will always be very appreciative of that," Lady Youde says of the upsurge of public 9 Ian F. C. Macpherson emotion that followed Sir Edward's death. "I think, though, he would have agreed that the present name is best." When it came to determining where to build the university, the Planning Committee quickly and unanimously decided on what the architect of HKUST, Dr Simon Kwan, calls "the prettiest site in all of Hong Kong". The Government had four available sites from which the Planning Committee could choose. "They let us visit four sites and pick one. We were taken to the four sites in a certain order, and it was quite clear that when we went to the last one it was going to be unanimous," Professor Woo says. HKUST has the Chief Secretary under Governor Youde, Sir David Akers-J ones, to thank for procuring the site at Tai Po Tsai, which overlooks Port Shelter and Clear Water Bay in the New Territories. He recalls the afternoon he got a good bird's-eye view of the sea-front site that originally had been intended to house a battalion of Gurkhas. "I was in a helicopter flying over the Kohima Barracks site and I thought what a wonderful place it would be for a third university. I had aerial photos taken and had them blown up, and took them into Youde's office in Government House. We agreed what a marvellous site it would be. Apart from its great natural beauty, the site was to some extent formed," Sir David says. An offer too good to refuse Platforms and roads had already been laid down on the hillside when the Joint Declaration was signed. Additional troops in the territory were not advised. To save money and at least two years of work, the university's architects made optimum use of the existing platforms. Planning Committee member Alice Lam says the site's openness immediately attracted her. She felt strongly that it would have a positive effect on future students. "Urban crowdedness does have an effect on people. You are less forgiving, you cannot think broadly. I think if a young man or a young lady could have the opportunity to live out at the campus for three years or even go out there daily, the openness certainly must do some good," Mrs Lam, the Director and General Manager of Hang Seng Bank, says. A month after the Planning Committee began working, The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club made an offer to Government that was simply too good to refuse. "Basically the Stewards said, 'Would you like us to build this university for you-and meet most of the construction costs?'" The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club's Chief Executive, Major General Guy H. Watkins, says. When the Prince of Wales laid the foundation stone of HKUST at a ceremony on 8 November 1989, he seemed genuinely taken aback by the Jockey Club's largesse:

"To discover that Hong Kong's third university is to be built with the help of a generous donation from The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club has come as a revelation to an honorary member of the British Jockey Club! Clearly, it would seem that I am running my one horse in the wrong country!" ------------------------------10 ------------------------------ Gordon M. Macwhinnie Major General Guy H. Watkins Indeed, $1.926 billion is generous by any measure. The Government is paying the balance of the $3.6 billion total for capital construction of the project's first two phases. Since the incorporation of its Charities company in 1959, the Club has donated a total of $6.3 billion to the community. The money has been given to charities, hospitals and schools, and has gone toward the building of the Hong Kong Sports Institute, the Academy for Performing Arts and several major parks, including Ocean Park and Kowloon Park, to name only a few of the larger projects. Ideal project for the Club General Watkins says that despite its size and complexity, he likes to think that the Club is an efficient and businesslike organisation. The Club is able to meet all the costs of the racing industry and still have a large surplus every year to contribute to community causes. "I know of no other racing organisation in the world in that happy position," he says. By 1986, the Jockey Club's surplus had grown to a sizeable sum. The Stewards looked hard at the question of how best to spend it. They were particularly interested in a big project the Club "could really get its teeth into". General Watkins says the 12 Stewards knew about the plans to build a university but felt it was needed sooner than originally planned. "The Stewards were very aware that the tertiary provision in Hong Kong was not nearly as high as that provided in other westernised countries, or in countries that are competing in the sorts of industrial markets that Hong Kong is competing in. And to that extent the young people of Hong Kong were disadvantaged," he says. "The Stewards were also well aware that the old manufacturing base of Hong Kong was steadily moving across the border because of the lower cost of labour in China. Hong Kong therefore needed new manufacturing opportunities as well as a chance to develop within the territory the sort of skills and technology that are not available in this part of the world at the moment. ... A new university devoted to science and technology seemed the ideal project for the Club to get involved with. A project that would make a significant contribution to the long-term prosperity and status of Hong Kong." The Club told the Government it was willing to fund and supervise the capital construction, using up the bulk of its charity funds for three years. The Club made it clear that the funds were available from 1988. Suddenly the Planning Committee's work took on new urgency. The availability of funds made it possible to move forward the university's opening to 1991 and to reach an enrolment of 7,000 students by 1996, instead of the original target date of 1999-2000. The right time and the right place By bringing the project forward three years, General Watkins says, "Hong Kong is going to have a university that will be well established and hopefully will have earned a good reputation before 1997. Moreover, although it has cost a lot of money, I am quite certain that it would have cost much more had it been built three years later; especially if it had been ------------------------------ 12 ------------------------------

competing with the new airport for labour, management skills and other resources." To do the enormous job at hand effectively, the Planning Committee divided up into subcommittees, each charged with a different task. In January 1987, the Vice-Chancellor Search Committee placed advertisements for the position in the leading educational journals of the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Canada. Letters also went out to friends and colleagues of members of the Planning Committee and the UPGC. The Search Committee received 44 applications and 47 nominations. Of these, 16 were invited for an interview; 14 agreed to meet with the six Committee members. The man eventually chosen for the post did not apply. "We sought him out," Sir S.Y. explains. "After a worldwide recruitment we couldn't find a candidate because we all believed we should find a candidate who had been running a university before .... As President of San Francisco State University, Professor Woo at least knew the problems of running a large university. "Also, we had been working as colleagues and we understood his mentality, his philosophy, his decision-making process, his ability, his strengths, his weaknesses. Therefore, we had much greater confidence in him than in anyone we would employ after a few hours, even a few days of contact." Professor Woo was unaware that he had been officially nominated and was a finalist. When he came to Hong Kong in September 1987 to attend a scheduled Planning Committee meeting, the Search Committee phoned him at his hotel and asked him to interview for the job. Professor Woo remembers someone saying, "Why not come talk to us? At least you can give us a calibration of what a university president should be like." "I said, 'You don't want me to come right away because I'm in blue jeans and a T-shirt.' They said, 'That's okay, we can't wait. You know how Hong Kong works.'" The day after the interview, the Committee offered him the post. For Professor Woo, the decision was not easy. However, his good work with the Planning Committee and a brief encounter with the Governor, Sir David Wilson, influenced him to consider the proposition seriously. "The next day we (overseas members of the Planning Committee) were invited to a luncheon with the Governor. On our way out after lunch, he said he wanted a word with me and took me aside. He said he understood that the Planning Committee had decided to offer me the position and he wanted me to consider it seriously. He said that in the life of every man there is the right time and the right place to do the right thing. He said, 'I think for you this is the right time and the right place.'" When he returned to the United States, Professor Woo and his wife, Yvonne, discussed the opportunity. "Typically as scientists we wrote down the pros and cons and compared. And I have to say that for my personal career and for the family it was almost all con and little pro. But my wife could see that I was trying to twist every con into a pro. It was a struggle. She eventually said, 'If you choose not to go, 20 years later you'll look back and say there was something you should have done, whether it's for the old country, or trans-Pacific relations. All your life you have disliked people who talk but do not take risks and act. If you feel that ------------------------------ 13 ------------------------------ this is really the right thing to do, then let's take the plunge. Forget about the pros and cons.' So we did." In November 1987, the Government announced Professor Woo's appointment as HKUST's Vice-Chancellor and President. Life for the Woo family changed overnight. Sleep became a luxury during the 10 months that spanned Professor Woo's accepting the position and his arrival in Hong Kong. He literally worked two shifts and wore two hats during those months. By day he was President of San Francisco State University. By night he was the mastermind of academic planning, building design and budget matters for a dream to be pursued across the Pacific. "The whole planning up to that point was implicit. Now suddenly it became real and it was very frightening. For 10 months every night from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m., my wife and I worked non-stop." Network of over 100 advisors On what, one might ask? Before the architects could design even a basic laboratory, they had to know its purpose. The same was true of every instructional facility and virtually every nook and cranny of the academic building. Designers and architects were waiting back in Hong Kong with a thousand questions on what was needed. The fax machine in Professor Woo's home spit out reams of queries daily, all demanding answers. But he couldn't do it alone. "The first thing to do was to get people who could help. Being a theoretical physicist, what I know about laboratories is rather limited, especially when it comes to their design. Although I have been a department head and provost, I have never done hands-on research in a laboratory myself," he says. With the help of colleagues and friends, Professor Woo and his wife put together a network of over 100 advisors-pre-eminent scientists, engineers and academic administrators from top research universities across the United States. With the input from these people, Professor Woo created what he calls a preliminary model for each of the 11 academic departments within the Schools of Science and Engineering. Each model spelled out a department's potential areas of teaching and research as well as the laboratory, equipment and space needs. The work was painstaking. In some cases, Professor Woo wrote as many as seven drafts before arriving at a satisfactory model. "First, I Simply asked people what specialties they would select if they were starting a department in their own field, and wanted it to be world-class in 10-15 years," Professor Woo says. Once he received a list, Professor Woo would go back to each advisor and brief him on Hong Kong and ask him to pick seven or eight areas that could foster Hong Kong's economic development. The list would then be pared down a third and final time. "We went after those specialities where we felt we could get the best senior people and enough money for equipment," Professor Woo says. "Without these preliminary models we wouldn't have known how many faculty to ______________________________ 14 ------------------------------

appoint for each department, or how much space to allocate to each and what equipment to buy. And without knowing what kind of equipment we need, we couldn't have determined how much money to ask for. All these things are closely related." Either world-class or nothing Those 10 months of work were critical. When Professor Woo came to Hong Kong in September 1988 to "officially" take up his post, he came armed with a blueprint for HKUST's future as a regional centre of academic and research excellence. "I don't know how we lived though those months ... , I must have written 606 memos and papers .... We could have slowed down, life would have been easier, but we wouldn't be opening. And now we're opening with a bang." The Planning Committee's work officially ended on 9 April 1988 when the HKUST Ordinance, enacted by the Legislative Council on 1 July 1987, came into effect. HKUST was no longer a plan, a dream; it was an established university. The new University Council took over the reins from the Planning Committee. September 1988 was a turning point for the project; Professor Woo arrived in Hong Kong and HKUST's first dean was appointed. Distinguished high energy experimentalist Professor Chih-Yung Chien left his post as Professor at The Johns Hopkins University to become HKUST's Dean of the School of Science (now Pro-Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs). As scientists who had made their names in the cut-throat environment of American academic research, both Professors Woo and Chien had learned that a research university is either "world-class" or nothing. And to become "world-class", HKUST would have to attract quality faculty. In the winter of 1988, Professors Woo and Chien immersed themselves in the task that would determine whether HKUST would ever attain its goal. With the help of members of the University Council and numerous overseas advisors, they began aggressively recruiting the true builders of HKUST-the founding faculty. While they were encouraged by the 3,000 applications received in response to advertisements placed in leading educational journals worldwide, they weren't satisfied. Of the 115 faculty appointed for the opening, 95% were "headhunted" through a strong network of colleagues in North America and Europe. As Professor Woo explains, "Most of the people we wanted weren't looking for jobs at all, let alone looking at the ads. We had to hit them one by one ... , -"When you start a university you want to appoint senior people who in turn will recruit junior colleagues. The deans, the department heads, the senior professors, all have to be absolutely world-class. The rule is: first-rate people attract first-rate people; second-rate people attract third-rate people; third-rate people attract nobody." This highly personal style of recruitment meant travelling countless miles, repeating the HKUST story countless times and hearing a polite, 'I appreciate your interest, but ... ' until the heart nearly broke. In one recruitment tour made in December 1988, Professors Woo and Chien went to 15 US cities in 12 days, interviewing people from 8 a.m. till 9 p.m. and travelling at night to save ______________________________ 15------------------------------ time. Professor Woo says the trip took more of an emotional toll than a physical one. "At that time we hadn't learned who would be the kind of person to come and who wouldn't. We were going after some people who had no possibility of coming whatsoever. Later a successful candidate said, 'You guys really couldn't have recruited me. We have to recruit ourselves. We have to be people who are willing to come but don't see our way clear. Then you come and open the door by presenting the opportunities and challenges.'" Professors Woo and Chien have opened the door to more than 100 faculty. The senior people have all been full professors from top research universities or leading researchers at technological corporations. The junior faculty have been what Professor Woo calls the "best PhDs from the best places". HKUST's success at attracting top-notch faculty has surprised even those most closely involved with the recruiting. Ian Macpherson, who is now Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Administration and Business, offers one explanation: "Why should a man of 50, perhaps not even 50, who's already a full professor, has a large research budget at his command, is very well respected in his field and in his university, why should he decide to relocate? It seems to me there is a real desire to contribute to this part of the world." It's the dream that motivates Professor Chien, who himself left his research with the European Nuclear Research Centre, the world's largest accelerator in Geneva, to come to HKUST, gives another reason people have been drawn to HKUST. "When you really come down to it, dreams motivate people, not money. But after you motivate them you have to provide the means to achieve the dreams. Then you come down to reality. Conditions have to be reasonable, resources have to be adequate and there has to be a persistent challenge." Professor Woo adds, "When we began recruiting, people would ask: 'Why? Why Hong Kong?' Fewer people ask that today. And when they do, we say, 'Why not? We've got 100 people you respect. The momentum is there.'" Sustaining the momentum will be critical as HKUST will be recruiting 100 new faculty members every year for the rest of this decade. From the beginning, HKUST planners conceived of a research university along the lines of major research institutions in the Western world. In a city which has built its wealth and reputation on developing others' ideas, there are sceptics who doubt Hong Kong's ability to invent and to create new information. They believe Hong Kong is already too far behind even its regional neighbours in many areas of research to ever catch up, much less surpass, them. Many others, however, say Hong Kong's future prosperity depends on plunging into both basic and applied research. The high stakes make the risks worthwhile. They argue that there are a number of fields in which Hong Kong could make an impact. ------------------------------ 16------------------------------ To meet this challenge, HKUST will strike a careful balance between both basic and applied research. Professor Donald D. Brown, who is a member of the United States' most distinguished scientific body, the National Academy of Science, advises HKUST on its academic and research plans as chairman of the School of Science Advisory Committee. He says that, to be a world-class university, HKUST must be devoted to research. The renowned geneticist says, "There's no such thing as a really high-quality teaching institution. Teaching must be coupled with research." Information research makes sense Key to HKUST's research strategy is the establishment of interdisciplinary research institutes that will focus on research relevant to Hong Kong's economic and industrial development. In January 1990, the Biotechnology Research Institute became the first such unit established with a $130 million grant from The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club. The Institute is one arm of the Hong Kong Biotechnology Project funded by the Jockey Club, the other arm being the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology located at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. When the Institute reaches full strength, no fewer than 50 academic staff from 10 departments are expected to take part in its research, advanced training and international programmes. The second research institute was established in November 1990 with a grant of $100 million from Hong Kong Telecommunications Ltd. The Hong Kong Telecom Institute of Information Technology was the first project to be funded by Hong Kong Telecom's charitable trust to support education-related projects. Researching new and better ways to move information makes clear sense in a territory where one in 10 people has a pager, one in 30 a mobile telephone, and the use of fax machines is second only to Japan. "We have a business community that is as demanding as any in the world for telecommunications," the chairman of HK Telecom and HKUST University Council member, Michael Gale, says. ' Hong Kong is also well placed to help build the telecommunications infrastructure of China, where there is only one telephone per 100 people. Chinese authorities have said they will spend US$6 billion over the next five years to improve the country's telecommunications infrastructure. With help from the private sector, HKUST plans to set up a number of research institutes, which will pull together researchers from the University's four Schools-Science, Engineering, Business and Management, Humanities and Social Science. In addition, a Technology Transfer Centre will be set up to work directly with the private sector. In this not-for-profit corporation, faculty and senior students will consult, introduce and apply new technologies, and take part in setting up manufacturing ventures. ______________________________ 17------------------------------ Let's go against the grain "Building an extensive relationship between industry and universities for economic development is not common, not anywhere in the world. That's what, I think, is one of the exciting things here. It would be something different and uniquely helpful to Hong Kong at this time," says Professor Thomas E. Stelson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development. Dr George E. Delehanty, Senior Assistant Secretary for Planning and Co-ordination, agrees that the building of HKUST is by no means a common venture: "If you ask the question what is the difference between a research university the way this one is constituted and most other universities, a poetic answer springs to mind. This is a group of people resolutely in search of surprise .... This is a contrarian investment in Wall Street terms. You read The Times Education Supplement, you read The Chronicle of Higher Education and everybody is saying, 'How can we get a quick return for our money spent on higher education?' Here people are saying, 'Let's go against the grain. Let's make a long term investment in human capital.' "And the contrarian view is also true in terms of the political context of Hong Kong. Everybody is saying, 'Emigrate.' And here we're saying, 'Build. Let's make a dramatic new investment. Let's surprise the rest of the world and make it work. '" On 2 October 1991, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology welcomed its first class of 560 undergraduates and 140 postgraduates who are ready to surprise Hong Kong and the world. A new story begins. ------------------------------ 18 ------------------------------ Uncommon opportunities often present tough challenges. HKUST is no exception, as architect Dr Simon K wan well knows. He considers the opportunity to design an entire university "very, very rare". A university campus typically evolves over decades, even centuries. The march of time is naturally reflected in the architectural styles of its different buildings. "Designing one building is easy, but a whole group is difficult, because each building in the group needs to be in harmony with the others and yet each needs to perform a different function," Dr Kwan says. Function and harmony are the operative words in the overall design of the HKUST campus. Finding solutions to today's complex problems often requires several disciplines working as a team. Architects placed the entire university enterprise-teaching and research-under one roof. The vast academic building is the architectural interpretation of a belief that is fundamental to the University's research mission-that knowledge must not be compartmentalised. Flexibility is the other factor determining the design of the academic building. The entire structure is planned on a grid system for optimum flexibility. Walls and equipment can be easily moved as placement of light fittings, air-conditioning outlets and sprinklers is uniform. When completed, the academic building will run straight along the uppermost ridge of the spectacular sea-front site for nearly half a kilometre. The building will be constructed in three stages, each stage extending further south, hence minimising interference of construction workers and vehicles with the operational parts of the complex. Student and faculty residences are on various plateaus up and down the steep site. The height of the building is dictated by a man-made hill on the western edge of the site that borders the village of Tai Po Tsai. Amazingly, as you drive along Clear Water Bay Road, which is at most several hundred metres west of the campus, you catch only glimpses of the immense academic building behind the landscaped "fung-shui" ridge, as the villagers refer to it. In November 1987, the Planning Committee voted unanimously to accept the design submitted jointly by Simon Kwan & Associates Ltd and Percy Thomas Partnership HK. As the manager for the project's construction, The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club commissioned the joint venture to begin work in December 1987. Simon K wan & Associates Ltd became responsible for the project's architectural design plus building and contract administration. Percy Thomas Partnership HK drew up the project's three-phase master plan and designed the interior layouts of the academic building. In December 1987, the Club also contracted the two engineering firms that had contributed the technical expertise to the Simon Kwan & Associates Ltd/Percy Thomas Partnership HK design. Ove Arup & Partners was to carry out all the civil, structural and acoustical engineering for the project. The mechanical and electrical engineering firm of J. Roger Preston & Partners was to be responsible for HKUST's highly sophisticated building services systems. Davis Langdon and Seah were also appointed as quantity surveyors for the project. The Club set up a team-at one point totalling 70 people-under the direct control of ------------------------------ 27------------------------------ the Club's Chief Executive, Major General Guy H. Watkins. The Club team reported to the Campus Project Management Committee of the University Council, chaired by Gordon M. Macwhinnie, the Club's current chairman. A matter of style Not conscious of any particular architectural style, Dr K wan wants his buildings to reflect the times in which they are built. HKUST is certainly a campus of its time. The curtain walls, cantilevers, large span structures, bright colours, free.:-form curves, glazed roofs and the "punch holes" of the entrance's concrete facade wall are all contemporary design and construction techniques. Even the choice of ceramic tile as the surface material for all buildings throughout the campus is indicative of the times. "In the '70s, particularly in this climate, we used a lot of horizontal and vertical projections to break up facades and give some shading. But all these failed. Today they look terrible. They crack, they collect dust. And they don't give you much shading," Dr Kwan says. "This building has a very clean facade. It doesn't collect dust. ... We have other means to provide shading, such as reflective glazing." The square silver-grey ceramic tile will stand up to Hong Kong's tough weather. While tiles are practical, both their shape and colour also serve an aesthetic purpose. The grid is the unifying design element for the whole building. "It's a rational system," Dr Kwan says. "The squareness of the tiles coincides with the planning grid, so the same message repeats throughout." He purposely chose a neutral colour for the tiles. "The building is slightly solemn to let nature stand out," he says. As an architect, Dr Kwan's primary concern is for what he calls the ingredients of his profession-space, volume and planes. The HKUST atrium reflects this belief. While the atrium is massive, it is not overpowering. The large wall openings at ground level and the barrel-vaulted skylight that spans the entire atrium inspire an appreciation for the lightness of the space. Dr Kwan's ornamental touches on the atrium walls also break down their size. His use of primary colours and children's woodblock shapes are post-modern in feeling, but Dr Kwan is quick to point out that he doesn't believe in "non-functional" gimmicks, nor does he attempt to copy a particular style. "I do things my way," he says. And his way is to put ornament to good use, whether it is to humanise in scale and feeling an otherwise mammoth edifice, to give depth to a view, or to give personality to a structure. The mushroom cut-out on the atrium's eastern side is an example of a functional flight of fancy. He chose the mushroom shape over a semicircle to keep people from inadvertently walking too close to the edge and knocking their heads. And like the traditional Chinese moongate, of which it is reminiscent, the mushroom frames a distant view of the islands of Port Shelter. ------------------------------ 28 ----------------------------- "Like a moongate it invites you to come and look out," he says. The Chinese influence is seen throughout the campus. The covered walkways that stretch from the transport interchange to the main entrance and from the academic building to the student halls of residence are a typical architectural feature of Chinese gardens. The use of the red railings in the walkways to the student housing is another contemporary expression of the Chinese penchant for framing vistas. The Hong Kong-born and trained architect explains, "We put the red railings up as part of a system to make a frame [for views]. Otherwise they're not essential because at that level you won't fall." Also typical of Chinese landscaping is the careful layout of architecture and greenery to create for the viewer what seems to be an unexpected vista. Dr Kwan says he and his partners were mindful of this idea when they placed buildings on the campus site. "We want to expose people to different visual experiences en route," he says. A radical approach The scope of the project was just the beginning of the challenges facing the architectural and engineering consultants who designed HKUST and the contractors and workers who built it. Time was their greatest adversary. Without exception, the consultants say the HKUST project was the fastest they have ever worked on. "What has been done in just over three years is little short of miraculous," says the civil engineer who was project controller for The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, William J. Greig. In the autumn of 1988, a team of architectural and engineering consultants and the Vice Chancellor/President visited technological universities in the United States and Britain to find out about campus networking philosophy, advances in technology research, space and environmental requirements, computer rooms, structures laboratories. The project director for Ove Arup, Robin Forster, recalls how the people who hosted the team reacted when they heard about the HKUST project. "Wherever we went, all were amazed at the scale of the project we were undertaking. To design and construct a university for a student intake in three years was considered impossible," Mr Forster says. While the campus was to be built in three phases, the first phase-106,000 square metres of academic floor space and 50,000 square metres of ancillary space-had to be handed over to the University in time for it to be furnished and fitted out for its October 1991 opening. "There are a total of 1,500 rooms in all phase I structures and no two are the same," says Peter G. Hughes, the partner in charge of the Percy Thomas Partnership HK team. The breathtaking pace at which things had to be done dictated a radical approach to the project's development. "One headache of this project has been that we have been building while we've been designing," Mr Greig says. "We didn't actually get a detailed design brief until after the architect's design had been selected. We had to produce one in a very, very short time." ------------------------------ 29------------------------------ To do that, designers had to know how the academic building space was to be used. But when design work began, only the Vice-Chancellor/President had been appointed. This was when the advice from Professor Woo's international network of scientists and academics became invaluable. Mr Hughes recalls the early months when the design and engineering firms were rushing to prepare detailed tender documents for contractors. "We had a wonderful expression called surrogate users," he says. "They advised us as to what they would need if they were working inside the building. Every room within the academic building was the subject of consultation. All the laboratories, everything. Our fax machine was buzzing away like mad. We were faxing details and information about every laboratory to someone at Georgia Tech, MIT, or in California. All that would go out overnight and the following morning we'd have piles of faxes coming in from all these advisors. Fortunately many of them were eventually appointed so they're living with what they said they wanted. It was great fun, very exciting work." Mr Hughes says the advice sought was fundamental to the campus design as the internal layouts generated structural and architectural plans and the building services. Designers faced not only a shortage of faculty, but a shortage of technical staff to produce the tens of thousands of complex drawings contractors needed to build the campus. "Phase I got the okay to go ahead at a time when there was a construction boom in the rest of Hong Kong," Mr Hughes explains. "It was extremely difficult to recruit staff. Because of the complexity of the building and the speed, it wasn't one of the most attractive projects for people to work on. It was great for the designers, and very exciting. But for workers down the line, they were really taking on an onerous task. They were asked to work long hours, asked to do extremely complicated architectural work at a hell of a speed. Without the help of computer-aided design systems, we could never have achieved the required output." The first contract for Phase I was let in August 1988 for site formation, roadwork and the foundations of the academic building. Foundation work was tricky as the entire site is volcanic rock in various stages of decomposition. The site is also steep, ranging from sea level to 120 metres at the main entrance. The dust on the site really began to fly in August 1990 when work on both phase I and Phase II was going on Simultaneously. There were momentary lulls in the activity, however. General Watkins explains, "We've had stages when the contractors have said, 'Okay, I've finished that, what do I do now?' and we say, 'Wait, we're still drawing it, so hang on'." In August 1991, Phase I was handed over. This included the granite-paved entrance piazza, the main academic complex comprising a multi-level library, administrative and academic offices, a computer centre, laboratories, classrooms, and a 400-seat lecture theatre, plus hostel accommodation for 670 students. As waves of trucks were delivering to the new campus "the magnificent and the mundane", everything from centrifuges to cups and saucers, as the July 1991 HKUST NEWSLETTER reported, construction of Phase II proceeded at full tilt under Hong Kong's wilting heat. By the end of 1992, facilities to accommodate an additional 5,000 students, including the majority of the planned sophisticated laboratories, are to be handed over. -----------------------------31 ----------------------------- Functional sculpture Dr Kwan believes in the idea of building as a three-dimensional art, "something like a functional sculpture", he says. Like a sculptor, he is obsessed with form. Evidence of this can be seen in the bold geometry of HKUST's academic building: in its strong semicircular entrance, which fits neatly into the massive rectangular academic building. The dramatic entrance was one of the key elements of the original design. The semicircle partly encloses a stone-paved piazza, which Dr Kwan likens to Venice's San Marcos Square. It is a contemporary translation of the Renaissance idea of using a grand, formal piazza as the entrance to a large structure, giving all who enter an immediate perspective of the total edifice. "The entrance serves a spiritual and functional necessity," he says. While Dr Kwan wants to give people a sense of the building's immensity, he does not want to overpower them. "If we used a solid wall it would be dwarfing," he says. In front of the reflective glass wall of the entrance, he has placed a tile-clad concrete facade perforated with large rectangles, squares, and a central triangle. The large rectangles along the base of the wall form a colonnade. Primary red and blue peek out from the inner rims of the holes. "The facade wall, the holes, the red colour, are all designed to make the square more human, to fragmentise the overall effect," he says. Passing through the colonnade, one reaches the main atrium-an impressive meeting place where people of all disciplines converge. The entire campus radiates from the atrium. To the far left are stairs leading to the multi-purpose sports hall. Also on the left is the entrance to the library. In the atrium's centre are stairs and escalators which form the beginning of the campus's east-west spine, descending four levels to the glass-covered walkway to the student housing. At the eastern end of the atrium, are two cores of lifts and stairs which lead to the University Council chamber, administration offices and some of the school offices. To the right of the atrium is the main staircase and escalator to the academic concourse which connects all teaching and research areas. In Phase I, the concourse will serve only one school and one lecture theatre, but in Phase II, it will become the main thoroughfare to all academic departments. It was Percy Thomas Partnership's job to successfully fit together classrooms, faculty offices, teaching and research laboratories in a workable manner. "A link between schools, research and teaching laboratories has to be worked out so you can actually feel that the professors can dash into their research labs and do their experiments but equally have easy access to their day-to-day teaching responsibilities. "That is the whole fundamental point of tomorrow's university .... You put it all under one roof and link it all together in spaces that are interchangeable," Mr Hughes says. Fibre optic cables are another component linking the university community. "Every room on campus is wired, including offices, labs, the library, student dorms and ---------------------------- 32 ---------------------------- the study in every faculty apartment. If you have a PC, you can plug it into the network anywhere," says the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Professor Chih-Yung Chien. At the same time HKUST wants to knock down physical barriers within the traditional university, it acknowledges a student's need to identify with a small group, to feel he or she belongs. "Imagine when the University gets to 10,000 students, 1,000 faculty, 2,000 support staff all in the joint building housing four schools, 19 departments and a dozen or more research institutes. It's very easy for people to feel alienated. There's no way everyone feels, 'I'm part of this group of 10,000,'" Professor Chien says. The academic building is designed to separate the various groups under its roof. There is no straight corridor running the length of the edifice and entrances to the Schools are varied in design and colour. Walking through the building, you enter different but inter-related domains. The same is true of the campus. As you walk across the campus, each building reveals something of its purpose. The chimneys sit atop the laboratories, balcony planters adorn staff housing, large windows span the library. Dr Kwan calls it "automatic story-telling". Says the architect of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, "I've never designed a building with so many different uses." Beneath the veneer A look beneath the veneer of the academic building reveals just how flexible and intelligent the structure is. The skeleton of the building has not one, but three different column grids. Support columns in the library are nine metres apart, enabling the structure to withstand heavy loading from book storage. In the academic Schools' rooms they are 12 metres apart, and in the laboratories, columns are 18 metres apart, allowing for optimum flexibility and use of space. Deep within the academic building is the cavernous building services unit that generates the "lifeblood" of the academic building, as the J. Roger Preston partner in charge of the project, Robert Moakes, refers to the highly sophisticated services his team designed. "Building services provide the environment which allows the building to function whether it's from a people point of view or an equipment point of view," Mr Moakes says. Nearly 70 of the firm's engineers were involved in designing the campus's air conditioning, mechanical ventilation, electrical services, plumbing and drainage, fire protection and alarm, lift and escalator, computerised building management and security systems. Fundamental to J. Roger Preston's building services design was the use of seawater to remove heat from the academic building. The firm also designed the special piped gases and electrical services for the laboratory workbenches and the exhaust systems associated with fume cupboards. The air-conditioning system is designed to compensate for changes in a laboratory's air supply when the fume cupboards are in use. When researchers are working with toxic ---------------------------- 33 ---------------------------- chemicals, for example, they switch on fume cupboards to expel the noxious gases from the laboratories. As there may not be enough air in the room to satisfy the exhaust requirement, a valve on a local supply Variable Air Volume, or VAV, unit automatically opens, allowing more air into the room whenever the cupboard is switched on. More air may mean the lab gets too cool. The lab's thermostat can't adjust the temperature, however, because it has been overridden by the fume cupboard. Instead, the computer control station monitoring the temperatures in the given laboratory's zone automatically resets the air supply temperature to all rooms in that zone in order to restore the air temperature in the critical lab. Movers and shakers Among the specialist laboratories being built in Phase II is the Structural Dynamics Laboratory. When fully commissioned, the laboratory will have two large mechanical shakers that will be able to simulate a wide range of natural and man-made dynamic environments, enabling HKUST faculty and students to study the large systems used in construction, transportation, energy and communications. Hong Kong is a large-scale consumer of such systems, and their structural integrity is important to the economy and to public safety. Normally, such laboratories are housed in a separate building. Due to limited space, this laboratory had to be placed within the academic complex, creating enormous design challenges. The Ove Arup team design allows researchers to mechanically shake building and structural parts without shaking their neighbours. The key design element is the laboratory floor: it is reactive, able to absorb the laboratory's tremendous vibrations. "Generally speaking this type of floor is built away from other sensitive areas of a university. We're actually building this directly underneath various floors of the research laboratories," Robin Forster says. Floors. Even the floors of the HKUST campus have been the subject of creative efforts. Every detail of the University has been thought out carefully. Thousands of people have worked tirelessly as a team to design, build and furnish a place for creative intellectual endeavor. HKUST is such a place. ----------------------------- 34 ----------------------------- TAIUNG CARE OF BUSINESS Professor Yuk-Shee CHAN, Deputy Head of Department of Finance and Economics If the number of applicants to HKUST's School of Business and Management is any indication, Hong Kong's young people are hungry for a chance to acquire formal business training. Nearly 6,000 students applied for the 150 places in the founding class of Hong Kong's first American-style business school. Yuk -Shee Chan is inspired by the goal of providing Hong Kong students with a business education that stands shoulder to shoulder with the world's best. "1 always think about building a global institution. We want our School of Business to rate among the best in the world," he says. To compete with the best, HKUST must continue to attract top-notch faculty. Faculty like Yuk-Shee. The Justin Dart Term Professor of Finance and Business at the University of Southern California (USC), he is being seconded to HKUST as Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Finance and Economics. Born in Hainan, China, Yuk-Shee received his early education in Hong Kong, and his first degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The dedication of his secondary school teachers inspired him to pursue an academic career. He remains in contact with some of these instructors. At the University of California, Berkeley, he earned an MBA, an MA in economics, and a PhD in finance and economics. Upon I always think about building a global institution. We want our School of Business to rate among the best in the world.

graduation he became Assistant Professor of Finance at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where three years later he was promoted to associate professor. In 1986 he joined USC. Several factors weighed heavily in favour of Yuk-Shee returning to Hong Kong to be part of the HKUST team. He was impressed by the quality and commitment of the faculty joining HKUST. "They are the elite in their fields," he says. He also felt a strong emotional attachment to Hong Kong, where his brothers and wife's family still live. And he wanted to adapt the US-style business education to Hong Kong. "What I learned in the US, both by study and experience, will be extremely useful for my work in Hong Kong," Yuk-Shee says. "One important thing I gained was teaching experience in top US business schools. They are very application-oriented, which is important in business education." Among the things that distinguish American business training from its European and Asian counterparts is the method of instruction, which has been evolving since 1960. Gone are the days when students sat silently listening to lecturers and the only chance they had to respond came at final exam time. Today students learn about actual business situations through case studies and management simulations. Group projects, class discussion and extensive computer work are also emphasised. Intensive faculty research is another hallmark of American business schools. The same will be true at HKUST. "We want faculty to publish in the very best journals as do their colleagues in the US and Europe," Yuk-Shee says. In addition to being widely published himself, Yuk-Shee reviews articles and papers submitted to some 20 international journals. "In a way it reflects your expertise as the journals send you the articles to be reviewed; you do not ask to be a reviewer," he says. Yuk -Shee says Hong Kong will be an interesting laboratory for business research. He plans to continue his research into the design of financial institutions' contracts and the regulation of banks. Throughout his career, much of Yuk Shee's research has been motivated by practical business and economic problems. "My research interest in the area of bank regulation, particularly in the reform of the US deposit insurance system, was motivated by the plight of the US savings and loans institutions in the 1980s. Yuk -Shee says the building of a new business school in Hong Kong is timely. "Because of 1997, Hong Kong should produce a lot of high quality business graduates who can help sustain the prosperity of the Hong Kong economy." ---------------------------- 45---------------------------- CREATING A LIBRARY WITHOUT WALLS Min-min CHANG, Director of Library To know something about Min-min Chang, you must scan the bookshelves of her home. While she loves art, particularly Impressionism and free-form Chinese painting, she has only a few reproductions on her walls. While she appreciates and knows about the production of fine crystal, . she doesn't collect crystal. "I'm not into collecting things," she says. Except books. Books on her favourite subjects abound. But then, books are not objects. To the Director of HKUST's library, they are a means to gaining knowledge, they have the power to make us better people. In Min-min's home, books also draw family members together. When her son became hooked on American literature as a secondary school student, Min-min, who had always preferred European literature, began reading the same books he was reading. Their discussions of the books brought the two very close. One would expect a professional librarian to love books. What might be unexpected, however, is her total grasp of information technology and her vision of 0.0W it can be used to create a library without walls. Min-min's career has coincided with the computer's revolution of the library. After completing her master's degree in library sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, she began working at Northwestern University's large research library. In the late 1960s, Northwestern pioneered in library automation. "Advances in information technology have completely changed the traditional library. Librarians are at the forefront of the information age," she says. Min-min easily transferred her expertise in library automation and her talents to the research libraries at the State University of New York in Buffalo, and McGill University in Montreal. While in Canada, she helped develop a national bibliographic utility. Min-min spent the six years prior to joining HKUST expanding the automation programme of the California Institute of Technology's library as head of technical services and later as associate director. Describing her task at HKUST, she says, "Building a new university and a library is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Min-min has a clear vision of how a technologically advanced library can best serve researchers and students. Technology enables HKUST's library to literally reach across the Pacific Ocean and into the world's largest on-line union catalogue- the OCLC, which includes some 23 million items from thousands of library collections. And that's just for starters. "We're very much at the cutting edge of information technology," she says. What that means for library users is access to more and different kinds of information than ever before. From any personal computer plugged into the HKUST network, a student can peer into the library's catalogue, look up a word in the dictionary, or flip through the encyclopaedia. Without leaving her chair, a student has access to nearly 40 databases that index thousands of business, science and general information journals. These databases give the new HKUST library access to more titles than any Single library could ever own. _____________________________ 46----------------------------

"All this is a first for Hong Kong," Minmin says. The Chinese language component of HKUST's integrated library system is a first for anywhere. The American developers of the library system software were initially hesitant about supporting HKUST as they had never sold their product outside of North America. But when Min-min told them of her plans to develop a Chinese component for their system, they couldn't pass up the opportunity to be involved; they decided to come. "When school starts in October, we will have a prototype Chinese module ready for our users. Many US and Australian universities can't wait to see what happens," she says. At the HKUST Library, technology is a means to more than just technological or technical information. Min-min and her staff are building a large media collection, including classical and contemporary musical and dance performances on laser discs. "Very few students will have a chance to go to the opera, or attend ballet and concerts, but they can obtain almost the real experience of world-class performances from these recordings," she says. "We have a large number of humanities and social sciences resources, almost as many as science," Min-min says. "I have a firm belief in a liberal arts foundation. Our students will be able to use the library as a means to achieving a complete education." Our students will be able to use the library as a means to achieving a total education. IMMORTALISED IN SPACE Dr Jay-Chung CHEN, Director of Research Centre and Professor of Mechanical Engineering ay-Chung Chen's perpetual quest for truth has led to both trouble and a chance at immortality. As a schoolboy in Taiwan, Jay continually enraged his teachers by asking too many questions. "In the Confucian culture, you never question (your elders). Asking too many questions is considered bad behaviour" he says. His "bad behaviour" propelled him to complete a mechanical engineering degree at Taiwan Cheng Kung University and to pursue his great love-airplanes. He went to the California Institute of Technology to do doctoral research in aeronautics. After receiving his PhD, Jay joined NASA's prestigious Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he focused on the dynamics of large systems such as satellites and spacecraft. He had a hand in building all of NASA's spacecraft from the time he began working with NASA in 1966, until he joined HKUST as director of the Research Centre in 1989. Working on the Voyager Program was a high point of his NASA career; the launch of two unmanned space probes in the 1970s earned him and others involved with the project a chance at immortality. Voyager 2 is now beyond our solar system and is hurtling toward the nearest constellation in the Milky Way, estimated to arrive in two million years. Jay hopes it will one day encounter intelligent life. In fact, the probe is prepared for the day it meets an extraterrestrial; it is equipped with 103 photos and an audio tape to show and tell about Earth. Two of the photos depict the Chinese. Jay says he and his Chinese-American colleagues argued for a long time about which images would best portray Chinese culture. They finally agreed on a photo of a group of Chinese around a table sharing a meal, and another of the Great Wall. An extraterrestrial who comes across the Voyager will also find the names of the people who built the craft. "Jay-Chung Chen" is among the names inscribed on a letter-sized gold plaque that is fixed to the craft's exterior. Jay's is the only name written in Chinese characters. "Voyager has become one of the heavenly bodies. It's a piece of immortal civilisation," Jay says, his face alight with wonder. Though Jay was extremely happy with his work at NASA, the chance to help build a base for scientific and technological research in Hong Kong was irresistible. "The opportunity to contribute to the people of Hong Kong at this critical juncture in time motivated me to join HKUST," he says. As director of HKUST's Research Centre, Jay is developing applied research programmes that are relevant to Hong Kong's economic and social development. In the next few years, the Research Centre will focus on the environment, energy, infrastructure development and the creation of a scientific database of information relevant to Hong Kong's development that can be used by scientists, industry and Government. Soon after Jay arrived in Hong Kong to begin work at HKUST, the Environmental Protection Department gave him a bird's eye view of Hong Kong from a Royal Air Force helicopter. "They took me from Central to the Chinese border, hovering over the environmental problem sites," Jay recalls. "I was really shocked to see the problem." Within months of his helicopter ride, he and colleagues from each of Hong Kong's tertiary institutions had organised an 48---------------------------- international workshop on Hong Kong's deteriorating environment. The workshop was a high-powered brainstorming session. Out of it came suggestions that the Research Centre has t:>t:> since developed into research projects on environmental technologies which Hong Kong can readily use. Diesel pollution is the focus of one project. Particles emitted from diesel-powered vehicles form one of Hong Kong's most serious environmental problems. To ban the use of diesel engines is counterproductive because the alternative internal combustion engine creates even worse problems. The most promising and direct approach, Jay says, is to reduce diesel particle emission. The Research Centre plans to develop three ways of doing this, they are: the development of fuel additives to reduce the formation of particles; the development of a catalytic incinerator to reduce particle emission by 50%; and the re-designing of the diesel engine. "Environmental technology is not a so called hi-tech area," Jay says. "It uses existing technology-civil, chemical and mechanical engineering, computer science and biotechnology, all of which Hong Kong has. "What I'd like to see is individual talents working together to tackle the problem, gaining experience, developing our own technology, and then exporting it to Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea, which have similar environmental problems." Jay's lifelong search for answers continues at HKUST.

Photos of a group of Chinese sharing a meal and the Great Wall-these images best portray Chinese culture. ------------- 49 -------------

UNQUENCHABLE CURIOSITY, UNSHAKEABLE CONFIDENCE Professor Peter Wing-Poon CHEUNG, Head of Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Professor Peter Wing-Poon Cheung has always had a quenchless curiosity about how things work. Growing up, he and his elder brother were continually tearing apart and reassembling family appliances to discover their secrets. But one day stands out in Peter's recollections of childhood tinkering. He and his brother had put together a crystal radio kit and were anxious to try it out. Wanting to get the best reception possible, they climbed to the roof of their Hong Kong apartment building• and held aloft the antenna wire. A popular song could be heard. "That was one of the greatest moments. We had built something and it worked," Peter says. The Head of HKUST's Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering has had many such moments in an academic research career devoted to making highly complex things work. His five US patents-and an additional three pending-in his research areas of biosensors, medical electronics, signal processing and instrumentation, attest to his success. Peter says his parents' encouragement and sacrifice figure largely in his career and the careers of his two brothers and two sisters, of whom three are professors and the fourth is a secondary school teacher. "My father didn't even have a secondary school degree," he says. "He was a clerical officer, yet ... He put us in college and continued to encourage all of us to seek the highest advanced degrees, no matter how hard it meant he had to work." In the late 1950s, the Cheung family borrowed money to send their eldest daughter to Oregon State University in the United States. Eventually all five Cheung children would attend Oregon State. Peter not only earned a degree there, but also met his wife, Shelly, a fellow chemistry major from Hong Kong. Peter continued chemistry studies at the master's level, but switched to electrical engineering for his PhD, at the University of Washington. Peter began teaching at Case Western Reserve University. "Those were the early days of microelectronics. In addition to teaching, I was learning everything I could about microelectronics and microprocessors," he says. Peter continually emphasises to his own students the importance of lifelong learning. Had he stopped studying when he completed his doctorate, he says he would know about vacuum tubes and transistors, but nothing about integrated circuits and microprocessors, the foundation on which the information and technology age has been built. His professional career has progressed in stages, each stage coincidentally spanning six years. He devoted his first six years at Case to aggressively seeking support for his research projects. Once established as a creditable researcher, large industrial corporations came calling, requesting his technical advice. In addition to being lucrative, consulting influenced Peter's teaching. "Instead of teaching only out of a textbook, I was able to discern what information would really be useful, to tell students what industry was really looking for," he says. His six years as a university researcher and consultant with big industry also taught him what it takes to turn an idea into a marketable product. "Many scientists who develop prototypes think that 90% of the work is done. But it's more like 10-20% toward ultimately ----------------------------- 50----------------------------

realising the product. They forget about product design engineering, consumer research, marketing, manufacture engineering and quality assurance, distribution and finance," he says. Peter put his experiences with industry to good use when he was recruited back to the University of Washington to build a new microelectronics programme that would interact with local industries. He was tailor-made for the job. During his six years at the University of Washington, he established a modern microsensor and microelectronics research centre. Several new companies were set up using ideas developed by Peter and his colleagues at the centre. He is now transferring his experience to HKUST and Hong Kong. "I want to help HKUST produce more well-rounded engineers with entrepreneurial spirit and a taste for research, integrated engineering and product design to support the growth of the region's electronic industry," he says. The move back to Hong Kong has not been without sacrifice. The Cheung family said goodbye to their beautiful home that Peter designed and built overlooking Lake Washington, and Peter's wife had to leave her medical practice as a paediatrician. Despite the sacrifice, the move has seemed right. "Returning to Hong Kong has been like finding my first love," Peter says.

We had built something and it worked. That was one of the greatest moments. CREATING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Professor Chih-Yung CHIEN, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs Chih-Yung Chien has been busy building things, big things, since he completed his doctorate in physics at Yale University in 1966. For 20 years, the high energy experimentalist shuttled back and forth between his teaching at The Johns Hopkins University and his research on the world's largest accelerators. In the 1960s, C.Y. did his research at Brookhaven, Long Island. In the '70s, Chicago's Fermi Lab housed the world's largest accelerator. And in the '80s, Stanford University became the mecca for high energy physicists. The European Nuclear Research Centre currently has the honour. C.Y. was one of the 300 physicists representing 30 universities and 17 countries that built the largest detector at the Swiss accelerator in the late '80s. In 1988, C.Y. began building something quite different and, he says, far more complex- a new research university. He was the second academic to join HKUST. As Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, he has led a team of school deans, department heads and directors in developing academic programmes, designing and equipping hundreds of laboratories as well as deciding on many academic research initiatives. In developing the curriculum, C.Y. believes strongly that students should be exposed to a variety of subjects outside their field of concentration. "Our faculty are some interesting role models. Our librarian and chemistry head are calligraphers. The maths head has published two volumes of essays about China and the US. And the engineering dean once published his own non-technical journal. "These role models are important. Otherwise students get the idea that knowledge is compartmentalised. Nonsense. It's a misconception that really limits people," he says. Helping young people to realise their potential has been a constant theme in C.Y.'s life. A key to success is to create a learning environment, he says. His own home was such an environment for his three children. "Our house was never neat. There were books, papers, pencils everywhere the bedroom, even the bathroom. My hobby is collecting books. My children came by their love of books and learning naturally. It was just the way we lived," he says. C.Y.'s wife and children are the source of his greatest pride. "They are my life," he says. His wife, Chun-Wuei Su, whom he met in the fifth grade in Taiwan, is directing a project to establish one of the world's largest nature preserve in the Himalayas. His children were early achievers. All finished their first university degree by the age of 19 and have pursued individual interests with the unflinching support of their parents. "Our first child has finished his PhD and ----------------------------- 52 ----------------------------- is now doing research work in San Diego in neurobiology. The second boy is doing his PhD in computer science and our baby daughter is striking out on her own in San Francisco, working at a museum. I miss them," he says. For C.Y, his dual roles of parent and teacher share a common goal-to help young people realise their potential. "Education is very simple," he says. "It's an unceasing quest to excel. The secret, I keep telling my children, is to seek a more perfect future. Never get frustrated by the amount or pace of progress as long as you seek to improve. The moment we stop we have stagnation. All problems stem from complacency. " In late July 1991, he told a group of over 900 students visiting the HKUST campus for the first time that the faculty was sincere in its desire to provide them with the best education available anywhere in the world. "The Government has done its part toward that end by providing a campus and funding our endeavour, we've done our part by providing an excellent faculty, now we need the students' help. They are the most important part," he says. "The university is far more than a beautiful campus, far more than a collection of students. It's what transpires among the students, faculty and staff." THE REWARDS OF STRUGGLE Edward T. CIDEN, Professor of Chinese Intellectual History, Division of Humanities. A s a child growing up in China, Edward T. Chien's life embraced both a turbulent present and an idealised past. In the cosmopolitan port-city of Shanghai during World War II, Edward and his family wore the fashion of the day-Western-style clothing. For special family gatherings, the Chien family would travel across the Yangtze River to their ancestral home in the town of Nantung. Once there, they would don the traditional Chinese robes of the upper middle class. There were no automobiles in Nantung, not even pedicabs. Rickshaws were the only means of transportation. Edward and his family left China for Taiwan in 1949. Though he was only eight when he left behind his "two different ways of life", the Professor of Chinese Intellectual History recalls every detail of his childhood to this day. At National Taiwan University, Edward studied history. He was particularly intrigued by continental European thinkers. After completing his bachelor's degree, he continued his studies at the University of California at Riverside. He purposely chose a small American university where there would be few Chinese students. At Riverside, he was the only Chinese student in the humanities. "I wanted to be exposed to a non-Chinese atmosphere," he says. "I wanted to struggle." He recalls being greatly influenced by foreign students from European countries. Language doesn't just signify, it constitutes what we think and feel. If our language is impoverished, so too are our feelings. Modern Chinese is erished language. "They introduced me to Lenin and Trotsky," he says. "I also became aware of the complex ethnicity of the United States." After completing his master's degree, he went to New York City "for even more ethnic variety". He arrived at Columbia University with the intention to continue studying the Western philosophers that had so captured his imagination. A meeting with Chinese intellectual historian William Theodore De Barry changed his mind. "De Barry and his friend Wing-Tsit Chan were the driving force for the establishment and development of pre-Modern Chinese philosophy as a field," Edward says. "I recall my first meeting with him. I told him that Chinese thought had no logic, was not systematic and seemed to be rather commonsensical. He let me go on for quite awhile. After I said those foolish things, he asked me, 'Where did you get these ideas?' I said, 'That's what everybody says.' He asked me, 'Who's everybody?'" De Barry offered to let Edward read his first major work, Self and Society in Ming Thought, which was at the galley stage. It was a turning point for Edward's intellectual career; upon completion of De Barry's book, he dedicated himself to pre-Modern Chinese intellectual history. "I actually deal with philosophical ideas, not popular beliefs," he says. "But philosophers tend to talk about ideas as eternal verities, while I try to temporalise them, to put them back into their place and time." Edward met his wife at Columbia; she was a fellow student. After receiving his PhD, he began teaching at the University of Chicago, where his wife is currently the Dean of Students for the Social Science Division. In 1987, he returned to Taiwan to help set up the Graduate Institute of History at National Tsing-Hua University in Hsin-Chu, not far from Taipei. He says the Institute had problems when attempting to develop the study of the Chinese scientific tradition. "Most of the people trained in history and philosophy of science specialise in Western European experiences and how the scientific tradition evolved in the West. But historians of the Chinese scientific tradition," he says, "are mainly archivists, who, though textually knowledgeable about traditional Chinese science, are often not methodologically self-aware or disciplined." Edward's experiences in Taiwan led him to ask probing questions about his own culture. "After many years in the West, I went back and asked myself why this lack of imagination, lack of critical awareness on both sides of the Taiwan Straits? "Just look at modern Chinese as a language. It is terribly impoverished. I can say practically everything in English that I want to say in Chinese, but the converse is not true .... Language doesn't just signify, it constitutes what we think and feel. If our language is impoverished, so too are our feelings. The Chinese are alienated from themselves; they are cut off from their tradition and isolated from the outside world." While in Taiwan, Edward was paid a visit by HKUST's Department of Mathematics Head, Professor Din-Yu Hsieh. Edward decided to join HKUST and help to shape its Division of Humanities. "I felt there was something worth doing at HKUST," he says. "As a humanist, I have a rare opportunity to work in a setting that is primarily science and technology oriented." 55-----------------------------

BIOLOGIST BLOSSOMS AFTER EARLY HARDSHIP Professor Ernest Hsiao-Ying CHU, Department of Biology Ernest Hsiao-Ying Chu learned the basics of scientific research in China during the tumultuous years of civil war that followed World War II. Though a score of America's best universities had accepted Ernest as a postgraduate student, he could not get a passport to leave China. He decided, then, to enrol in the National Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Due to the war, conditions were rough. If a microscope slide coverslip broke into two, it was reused. Ernest's teachers told him that in the interior of China, the hardship was even greater. If a coverslip broke into four pieces, it was reused. Through a series of lucky breaks, Ernest managed to get a passport and go to the United States to study in 1949. He had no way of knowing that it would be 29 years before he would see his family again. "I was one of the 4gers, but 100 years too late," Ernest says with characteristic good humour. "I did find my own pot of gold, though." The University of California at Berkeley was the first university he visited on the list of schools that had accepted him two years earlier. Ernest recalls how he timidly knocked on the registrar's window. "A woman appeared. I said I wanted to submit my admissions letter. She asked me to wait. She then came back and opened the window wider. I told her my admissions letter was two years old. The lady said, 'If you're admitted, you're admitted. '" He did both a master's and PhD degrees in genetics at Berkeley. He says that years later someone remarked on how quiet he was as a student. "I had to be. By the time I translated in my mind from Chinese to English, the question was no longer relevant," he says. After Berkeley, he went to Yale where he began research on human chromosomes and the genetics of mammalian somatic cells. He was at Yale for nearly six years when he was recruited to join the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he remained for 13 years. He focused his research on radiation biology, cell mutation and the repair of genetic material. Understanding how a cell changes and how genes control cell functions is the first step to knowing what causes cancer, to name one of countless examples. Ernest's research spoke for him. Recruiters from different institutions came calling with jobs. He finally decided to move his wife and three children to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he took up the post of Professor of Human Genetics and Toxicology at the Medical School and the School of Public Health of the University of Michigan. Throughout his career, Ernest has often returned to the country of his birth to help young people. He has repeatedly travelled to Taiwan and China-mostly at his own expense-to lecture, to conduct seminars and training courses. He says his accepting HKUST's offer to shape its biology department was consistent with his wish to contribute to the region. "My overriding aim was to come to help to build a strong education and research base for this part of the world that would benefit not only Hong Kong, but the region. I came at considerable personal disadvantage. I left 18 years of secure, tranquil --------------------------- 56------------------------------

academic life to face uncertainties," he says, laughing. At the same time, coming to Hong Kong is almost like returning home. "I'm a man of two cultures. Even though I've lived in the US for over 40 years, I was brought up in China. I've never lost my love for my cultural heritage," he says. Ernest's father, a retired orthopaedic surgeon in Shanghai, has followed his son's successful career through letters. During the many years of severed US-China relations, Hong Kong was the intermediary was to come earchhase also the point for their correspondence. In a reply to Ernest's letter about HKUST's offer, he told his son that Hong Kong had all the advantages of Western convenience along with a rich, Eastern cultural background. He highly approved of his son's decision. "I now find I'm away from self-promotion. I'm not working for my benefit," Ernest says. "I'm working almost 100% for others and it makes me very happy." A MARRIAGE OF DIFFERENT WORLDS Professor Din-Tu HSIEH, Head of Department of Mathematics You could say there are two Din-Yu Hsiehs. One is an eminent applied mathematician. The other is an accomplished writer on contemporary life and politics in China and the United States. One was born and got his early education in China. The other did postgraduate studies and built a successful academic research career in the United States. Din-Yu's different worlds seem to fit together neatly in Hong Kong and at HKUST. Like many of his colleagues, Din-Yu joined HKUST because, in his words, "I wanted to do something for the Chinese people. I have visited China and Taiwan many times." In fact, as Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, he spent his last two sabbatical leaves lecturing in China's leading universities. He has also written three technical books in Chinese that were published in Taiwan and on the mainland. And he has been advising the new Ningbo University since its establishment five years ago in Zhejiang Province. Din-Yu's wife, who was also born in China, fully supports Din-Yu in his desire to give something back to the land and people of their birth. She gave up her career as a research biologist to be with her husband in Hong Kong. HKUST attracted Din-Yu for another reason. For more than a decade he has been advocating an interdisciplinary mathematics programme in which students would use mathematics to solve specific problems in other fields. As head of HKUST's Department of Mathematics, Din-Yu is getting his first chance to put into practice his "unorthodox" scheme. If successful, the programme could become a prototype for tertiary mathematics programmes throughout the world. Students can choose from two streams within the Department. They can go the traditional route of Pure and Applicable Mathematics, which includes such fields as probability and statistics, operations research and theoretical mathematics. Or they can choose what Din-Yu calls Mathematics Science and Applications, or MSA. The MSA programme is unique because students must choose a minor field and take up to one-third of their courses in that field. Fields which would make a good pair with mathematics include computer science, business, physical sciences and engineering. Graduates from the programme will have a solid foundation in mathematics and a firm grasp of another discipline, making them highly marketable. "The great mathematicians before the 20th century were both pure and applied like Newton," Din-Yu says. "But Einstein, for example, would belong to the MSA group as his main interest was physics, not mathematics. " Din-Yu would also belong to the MSA group as he has placed mathematics at the service of engineering. His early research on bubble dynamics made him a world authority on the subject. More recently he has been working in the broad area of fluid dynamics, studying nonlinear waves and chaos. He will continue this work at HKUST. The study of chaos is fairly new and has developed as computer capacity has grown and become more accessible. Scientists ----------------------------- 58---------------------------- believe that if they can understand chaos, they will have a clue to the cause of turbulence in air and water, which is a mystery. "A lot of things in nature seem to be chaotic, random. But we have a way to classify their order Before the availability of extensive computing power, we would identify something as chaotic and just give up. Now with the computer we can make a detailed study of chaotic data," he says. Since coming to Hong Kong two years ago, Din-Yu has published two books of essays he wrote in Chinese in the 1980s. One, entitled America, America, contains his "unconventional" views on American society. "I think America has a double personality," he says. "It probably has one of the most enlightened domestic policies, but its foreign policy is imperialist. This confuses many people." His critical observations are not limited to the United States. Wherever he goes, Din-Yu watches and reflects. His second book is based on a diary he kept during a four-month sabbatical in Wuhan, China, in 1982. "It contains my observations of daily life," he says. Hong Kong is the most recent object of his gaze. He has written several magazine articles since coming to the territory. In one, he shares his views on 1997. He believes Hong Kong can influence China by setting examples, not by protesting. "In building a new university, we can set an example of how to run a university properly," he says. "That is the way to influence." fa In building a new university, we example of how to run a university That is the way to influence. ..

WEARING A JACOB'S COAT OF LANGUAGES Dr Gregory C.A. JAMES, Director of Language Centre here's a sociological theory that says people who are interested in foreign people and cultures are social deviants. What does that make me?" the Language Centre Director, Dr Gregory c.A. James, asks, laughing. Gregory's "wild, nomadic" instincts, as he refers to his wanderlust, have taken him to many countries far from his native Cornwall, England. But he is no passive tourist, collecting snapshots for the folks back home. He is a talented linguist, both as a teacher and as a student. Wherever he travels, he engages in a fair exchange of language and culture; he teaches English, and in his own time learns the native language. After earning a master's degree in French and general linguistics from the University of Edinburgh, he entered a programme in the University of Wales that trained teachers of English as a foreign language. "I got hooked," he says. "I've been in the profession ever since." India was his first posting as an English teacher. Gregory was one of a group of lecturers on the Madras English Language Teaching, or MELT, Campaign. "We called it the Madras Snowball," he says. "Hundreds of teachers would come in, we'd train them, they would go back to their villages and train others, who would in turn train others. It was the snowball effect. Some 60,000 teachers were trained in a very short period." While in India, Gregory learned to speak and write Tamil, a language that would later figure largely in his research. After the Madras campaign officially ended, Gregory returned to England "poor and thin", he says. He stayed in England long enough to earn a Master of Philosophy degree in Linguistic Science from the University of Reading. "Iran under the Shah" was his next stop as an English teacher. Not long into his four-year stay in Iran, Gregory was speaking fluent Persian, so well, in fact, that he was asked to be a translator in the local magistrate's court that dealt with foreigners. He says he saw the "storm clouds" of revolution coming and left Iran in time. Towards the end of his stay, his students would use the language laboratory's tape decks to listen to speeches of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Back in Britain, Gregory wanted to follow the events in Iran and decided to return to Edinburgh to study modern Persian and Islamic history. But a professor talked him into learning classical Persian, arguing it was much more" cleansing for the soul". At Edinburgh he earned his third master's degree, in applied linguistics. He then took a job at the University of Exeter, teaching applied linguistics. At Exeter, he met his wife, Hong Kong-born Ng Kit-ying, and he earned a doctorate in applied linguistics, investigating communication problems of overseas students in British universities. He also researched the history and use of Tamil dictionaries, which were long written on palm leaves. He visited libraries throughout Europe in search of Tamil palm leaves, many of which had reached Europe via missionaries and colonial administrators. "Many libraries didn't know what they had," he says. "No research on the subject existed." While examining the palm leaves held by a library in Florence, Gregory was confronted by a library official flanked by armed police. 60 ---------------------------- "They said, 'We don't know what it is you're looking at, but it's too rare for the likes of you,'" Gregory recalls with a laugh. While at Exeter, he undertook a number of consultancies in Europe and the Far East, on behalf of the British Council. He has held visiting academic positions in Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the USSR-and maintains his major claim to fame is to be the first (and so far only) Westerner since World War II to have given an English class in Albania. In 1983, he took a two-year sabbatical from his position at Exeter, to work with the Government in Hong Kong, where as a Vice-Principal, he helped to set up the Institute of Language in Education. In March 1990, he returned to Hong Kong as Director of HKUST's Language Centre, where about 80% of HKUST students will receive five hours of English training a week. They will also be given the opportunity to learn Japanese, and there are plans to offer Korean and European language When you learn a language there's a change of personality,. a change of clothing. We have to help students ... feel comfortable in their new clothes. guages as well. "We will use a functional approach to language instruction," Gregory says. He includes himself among the teachers as he will be teaching a full load of classes. "That's my personal decision. I get a lot of satisfaction out of teaching," he says. "My different experiences have given me a healthy respect for students," he says. "You learn to appreciate where students come from, their weaknesses and foibles. ... When you learn a language, there is a change of personality, a change of clothing. And some people don't feel comfortable in their new clothes. We have to help students overcome their shyness, their discomfort when speaking a foreign language in front of their peers."

LEARNING TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS Dr Yue-Kuen KWOK, Lecturer in Mathematics Yue-Kuen Kwok will encourage his students to ask questions, no matter how ridiculous they may seem. "We are so reluctant to ask dumb questions," the young Lecturer in Mathematics says of people who have received a traditional Chinese education. As he went to primary and secondary school and earned his first degree in Hong Kong, Yue-Kuen includes himself in the group. His postgraduate work in the United States, however, taught him that out of every five seemingly dumb questions, one is inspired. "We're so fearful of being embarrassed. We don't want to appear to be stupid or appear to be outstandingly bright," he says. "We tend to define ourselves by the group." Yue-Kuen wants to show his students the value of being bold and asking questions. "I want to teach insight rather than just facts," he says. "If they want to be researchers, they need to know how to ask the correct questions and know where the correct questions lie." Since he shares the same background as his students at HKUST, Yue-Kuen believes he can serve as a role model for them, something he didn't have when he was going to school in Hong Kong. Yue-Kuen says a very small percentage of his fellow engineering students went on to do postgraduate work. "At the time, universities here didn't give you the idea of what you could do after a bachelor's degree," he says. His parents even discouraged him from doing advanced degree work as they thought a BS was good enough to get a job, which was their major worry. They naturally wanted their six children to have an easier life than they had had. Yue-Kuen's father owned a small herbal medicine shop on Hong Kong Island. As the family member with the head for figures, Yue-Kuen took charge of the shop's accounts when he was 13. Despite his parents' concerns, YueKuen wasn't content to stop at a bachelor's degree. With a full scholarship, he went to Brown University where he earned a PhD in applied mathematics. He began his teaching career at West Virginia University. From the start, YueKuen felt at home before a group of students; he wasn't nervous giving even his first lecture. Something that did unnerve him, however, was his first meeting with a Hong Kong-born postgraduate student that lived in his dormitory at West Virginia. Yue-Kuen fell in love with Oi Chun-which means precious love-the first time he saw her. They married soon after they met and now have two young daughters. In 1987, Yue-Kuen took up the post of Assistant Professor of Mathematics at San Jose State University. At the end of the same year, Yue-Kuen made a special trip to meet Professor Chia Wei Woo to talk about the new university being built in Hong Kong. Professor Woo, who was then President of San Francisco State University, had just agreed to be HKUST's first Vice-Chancellor and President. "At that time I didn't have any plans to come back to Hong Kong," he says. "I did offer to help build the new university by introducing other mathematicians." ----------------------------- 62 -----------------------------

I want to teach insight rather than just facts. Researchers need to know how to ask the correct questions and know Where the correct questions lie. But Yue-Kuen found Professor Woo's enthusiasm for the project hard to resist. "He really wanted to have young faculty originally from Hong Kong to go back to their hometown to help build HKUST," he says. In the end, that's what Yue-Kuen and his family decided to do. "I want to establish my research in scientific computation here," he says. To him, mathematics is a living and readily applicable discipline. Already YueKuen and his colleagues are writing proposals to study the convection of silt and pollutants in the Pearl River Delta, which Yue-Kuen says is the first step toward a reasonable pollution policy. In his free time, Yue-Kuen promises to help students set up the HKUST table tennis club. He plays a mean game: In 1982 he was the second runner-up in the annual US College Table Tennis Tournament. A ---------------------------- 63----------------------------

COMPUTING A KEY ROLE IN THE COMMUNITY Professor Fred Lochovsky, Department of Computer Science Dr Amelia Fong Lochovsky, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science Seven-year-old Lucas Lochovsky lists off the computer games he and his brother have. "There's Ernie's Big Splash, Ernie's Magic Shapes, Astra Grover, Big Bird S Special Delivery, Roll-a-Word." "He forgot Reader Rabbit," five-and-a half- year-old brother Conrad adds. Lucas began learning to use a computer when he was three. It was a natural thing for him to do. As computers are the focus of his parents' professional lives, they have been part of the family furniture for as long as Lucas has been around. Fred and Amelia Fong Lochovsky have moved their young family from Toronto to join HKUST's Department of Computer Science, he as Professor and she as Senior Lecturer. Fred was formerly Professor of Computer Science and of Management at the University of Toronto. Amelia's previous post was as Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Guelph. They first learned about HKUST in 1988 when a former classmate of Amelia's put her name on the HKUST Newsletter mailing list. They closely followed the University's progress and eventually applied for positions. "How often does one get a chance to live in another part of the world?" Fred asks. "Also, because Amelia was from Hong Kong,

it was a chance for her to reacquaint herself with this part of the world." "We'd also like our children to learn Chinese and to get to know the Chinese culture," she says. In April 1990, the new Dean of Engineering, H.K. Chang, called to say he would be going to Toronto in May to meet both of them. The timing of Dean Chang's visit was memorable. "Our wedding anniversary is May 16 and every year we go away for three days," Amelia says. "The tradition is that it's a surprise. I just pack and we get in the car and go. I don't know where we're going until we get there." "Last year, we stayed in a hotel in Toronto," Fred says. "Dean Chang flew into town at the time and invited himself to come and see us the last day of our three-day stay. This year when we went away we asked him if he was going to join us again." The Lochovskys were deeply impressed by what Dean Chang had to say about the university and were intrigued by the chance to have a hand in shaping its computer science department. Fred was working toward a bachelor's degree in engineering when he was introduced to computers. "I was taking a course on technology I remember part of the course was devoted to the impact computing on life ----------------------------- 65----------------------------- and its impact on life. I remember part of the could do and I wanted to find out more," any job course was devoted to the impact of she says. family. computing on life and the challenge of making Though her best subjects were computers useful to people. That really got math ematics and physics, Amelia's parents, me interested in the subject," he says. particularly her mother, didn't encourage her to Fred went on to earn both his master's pursue her interest in computers. and PhD degrees in computer science. He "They didn't think a girl should go into says. says his research in database and information - the sciences," Amelia says. "My mother said have 10J systems evolved out of his desire to it would be too stressful, particularly if I stand make computers useful to people. have a family. But I didn't believe her." Amelia was a secondary school student "She does now," Fred says, jokingly. in Hong Kong when the computer bug first Amelia, who went on to earn a phD in there. got her. electrical engineering and computer science ideas." "I was fascinated by what computers from Princeton University, believes W any job is stressful for a woman with a family. But she concedes that an academic research career does have its special demands. "The public sometimes have misconceptions about university teaching," she says. "They think we teach few classes and have long holidays. They don't fully understand the demands of research, which often keeps us up till midnight and busy on the weekends. You work when the idea is there. At five o'clock you don't shut off the ideas." While demanding, research is the "big fun part" of university teaching, Amelia says. At HKUST, she will be continuing her investigations into image processing, the enabling of computers to process images as well as numbers and text. ENGINEERING THE FUTURE Professor Thomas E. Stelson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development before HKUST came calling, Professor Thomas E. Stelson had been looking. forward to life away from academe. The civil engineer who had spent 20 years building the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) into one of the top research universities in the United States was planning to start his own business. A phone call changed all that. "There isn't any situation like this that I know of in the world. And it's probably the only one that would have interested me. I had rejected other things," Tom says. In January 1991, Tom joined the founding team of HKUST. As HKUST's Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development, Tom is, to borrow a phrase, a technology and research broker, minus the commission. It is his job to match industrial and governmental research needs with HKUST's research capabilities. Tom has a proven track record. When he joined Georgia Tech in 1971, the Institute's annual research budget was about US$10 million. Under his leadership, the budget mushroomed to an annual US$150 million and was second only to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the amount of industrial funding received. One of HKUST's stated objectives is to concentrate on research that will contribute significantly to Hong Kong's economic and industrial environment. "In Asia, that's a relatively new focus," Tom says. What kind of research does Hong Kong need? For answers, one need only look at Government's and industry's plans for the territory's future. Government spends $2.0 - 4.0 billion yearly on environment-related tasks and has promised to build a $20-

billion sewerage system to clean up Victoria Harbour. Within the next five years, the China Light & Power Co will build one of the world's largest fossil fuel power plants with a capacity of more than 6,000 megawatts at an estimated cost of $60 billion. A nuclear power plant will be switched on in China at nearby Daya Bay. And' Hong Kong will spend an estimated $127 billion in the next seven years to build a new airport and expand what is already the world's busiest port. These vital projects have two things in common. Critical to all of them is technology. And the technology is the result of research and development done overseas. Tom and his colleagues want HKUST to do the research and develop some of the new technologies relevant to Hong Kong's future. To accomplish this, HKUST is already building partnerships with industry. Tom believes that close collaboration between universities and industries will be enormously beneficial to the students. "If the students are involved in these vital interactions, the employment opportunities are almost designed for them before they graduate. That's one of the reasons industry is so supportive of these activities. They not only get first-rate research done, they get first-rate people along with it, already trained," he says. Tom is a first -rate addition to the HKUST team. In addition to education and research development, his interests include energy systems and renewable energy resources; environmental protection; applied mechanics in the solution of problems in foundations, hydraulics, and structural engineering; transportation systems; computer and engineering applications; and economic and industrial development. In 1980, while on leave from Georgia Tech, Tom served as assistant secretary for conservation and solar energy in the US Department of Energy, directing a programm with a budget of US $1.7 billion. "When I went there [Department of Energy], I asked President Carter what he wanted to achieve," he recalls. "He said he wanted to reduce oil imports by half a million barrels a day. In a year we reduced them 2.2 million barrels a day." Tom made his first of many visits to China while he was at the Department of Energy. But his introduction to China had occurred a year earlier when on behalf of Georgia Tech, he hosted Chinese leader Deng Xiao-ping's visit to the Institute. President Carter had asked Tom to prepare the visit. An "enormously interested" Deng was shown how satellite data is reduced for land use analysis and the workings of a 400 kilowatt solar energy-powered turbine. HKUST is already working with Chinese scientists and researchers on joint projects. Tom says he is fascinated by the challenge of helping China and other Asian Pacific countries to solve their "big technical" problems. ____________________________ 69---------------------------- COMING FULL CIRCLE TO CONTRIBUTE Professor George Ke-Lun WONG, Department of Physics George Ke-Lun Wong left Hong Kong 25 years ago because it could not give him the science training he wanted. His return in July 1991 as Professor of Physics at HKUST is evidence that things have changed. "When I graduated from secondary school, if you wanted to go into technical areas-and I knew I wanted to study science or engineering-further study here just wasn't possible. Nobody was granting PhDs in physics. I was forced to go abroad to pursue advanced training," he says. With full scholarship offers from a number of top US research universities, George chose the University of California at Berkeley. "I liked the weather," he says, laughing. That and the education Berkeley offered. He stayed there nine years, earning a bachelor's degree in engineering physics and a PhD in physics. Driven to excel, George earned many honours as a student. He was named a Regents Scholar, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and received a Whiting Fellowship. The dedication of his professors and advisers influenced George's commitment to science. "Most people I came into contact with were extremely dedicated. The joy of discovering new things, of working with and supporting their graduate students and post-docs motivated them to work 60-80 hours a week. That kind of dedication is essential to be a great scientist," he says. Berkeley had an impact on more than just George's intellect. It was there he met his wife. He began his teaching and research career at Northwestern University as Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy. In fact, it was Professor Chia-Wei Woo, who was then department head at Northwestern, who recruited George. He was a full professor there when Professor Woo was again recruiting, only this time for HKUST. Would he come back to Hong Kong? A simple enough question, but agonizing to answer. George's positive response

meant uprooting four children, ranging in age from 16 to two, and asking his wife to leave her successful dental practice. "It was a sacrifice," George concedes. Why come, then? "This is an opportunity to help shape Hong Kong for the next century," George says, adding, "I was inspired by senior colleagues who have achieved so much in the United States and have joined HKUST." The condensed matter physicist is also keen to put Hong Kong on the map of important research centres. He will continue his investigations into nonlinear optics, a research discipline dealing with interactions between light beams. That effort is intimately related to his other research interest-thin-film materials physics, which he will also pursue at HKUST. The processing of light with light "will be the next technological breakthrough," he says. "We will move from electronics to photonics, using light to operate an optical version semiconductor, a new type of computer using the concept of neural networks and fuzzy algorithms, and many other gadgets." "As computers become more complex, even a straightforward task like the interconnection between circuits becomes a nightmare. The prospect of a 3-dimensional interconnectivity between sources and receptors of light will make a tremendous impact here. There is also a limit to the compactness of electronic items as the electromagnetic waves can interfere with one another. If you substitute photons for electrons, you can make smaller and faster devices." At the recent NATO Advanced Workshop on Nonlinear Optics at which George was invited to speak, it was estimated that it would be about 10 years before photons replaced electrons. In the meantime, there is a hybrid technology already available- opto-electrorucs. "I went into this branch of physics because it was something you could play with and have control over," George says. "When I first began, if you had a good idea, you could often move from an initial concept to finalising an experiment within a few days. The complexity and scope of experiments have grown considerably since then, but a typical project can still be carried out within a relatively short time. It's very exciting." George has come full circle. At HKUST he will be giving Hong Kong students the kind of science training he was unable to obtain. "I feel proud and excited for Hong Kong to have accumulated enough wealth and a leadership with the foresight to invest in science and technology, which will in turn contribute to Hong Kong's economy in an important way," he says. " 71 ---------------------------- COMMITMENT THAT KNOWS NO BOUNDS Professor Chia-Wei WOO, Vice-Chancellor and President He has been called a man with "missionary zeal". Family, friends and colleagues continually exhort him to slow down, but to no avail. "Sometimes I feel even Hong Kong's pace is too slow for me," HKUST's founding Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Chia-Wei Woo, says with a laugh, though you get the impression he means it. "It's not drive that propels me, it's commitment," he says. "When I have a job to do, I believe in total commitment. ... In any other position, you know where your work begins and where your responsibility should end. But when you're a chief executive, there's really no end to your workload. You can always sleep less and do more." Running fast and sleeping little is hardly a new lifestyle for Chia-Wei: He climbed the conventional academic ladder in record time. Chia-Wei completed his secondary education at Pui Ching Middle School in Hong Kong at age 16. He spent a year waiting for his student visa, and in 1955 went to the United States. Amazingly, he earned a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics in one year, graduating Summa Cum Laude at age 18. He earned both his master's and PhD degrees in physics at Washington University in St. Louis. There he worked between degrees and met his wife, Yvonne. "For my generation of Chinese, science was god," he says. "In those days, we were all refugees so it was important to have marketable skills [to earn a living]. For myself and some of my colleagues here, had we been born and raised under more secure circumstances, we might have gone into the humanities. Myself, I would have gone into history and literature, in particular novels and poetry." While circumstances have limited Chia Wei's choices at given points in his life, he feels fortunate because "everything I've gotten into, I've loved". After doing postdoctoral research at the University of California at San Diego, Chia Wei became an Assistant Professor of Physics at Northwestern University in 1968. He had held the post for only two years when two "giants" in his field, David Pines and John Bardeen-the latter a two-time Nobel laureate, invited him to join the faculty of the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) as a Visiting Associate Professor for one year. Returning to Northwestern, he was promoted immediately to Associate Professor. Two years later, he was again promoted, this time to full Professor. Generally, in research universities one remains at the assistant and associate levels for five to six years each before becoming a full professor. By age 36, Chia-Wei was Chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. "Most days I worked on research until after midnight," he recalls. "At the time I left Northwestern, the research group I was responsible for had grown to 11. It had become quite an obligation. Maybe there's something Confucian about that sense of obligation." In 1979, Chia-Wei was appointed Provost and Professor of Physics at the University of California at San Diego, then the leading university in his field of quantum many-body theory. In 1983, he took up the presidency of San Francisco State University; he was the first Chinese to become president of a major American university. The Chinese-American community had great expectations of him. 72 ---------------------------- Chia -Wei's total commitment to his work has limited the time he has had to spend with his family. He recalls that the same was true for his own father. "My father didn't spend much time with us. He worked very hard," he says. "But he had a philosophical impact on my life." Chia-Wei has no doubt had a similar impact on his four children, each of whom is forging a Singular path. The eldest, 27, is completing his PhD in computer science, specialising in artificial intelligence. The 26-year-old daughter works in Hong Kong for the satellite broadcasting division of the Hutchison Whampoa group. The third child is a 24-year-old computer software engineer working in California's Silicon Valley. There is a l4-year gap between the third and fourth child. Chia -Wei explains the age difference mischievously, "When the older three were in high school, they decided they wanted a live doll to play with, so we obliged. That was before Hong Kong produced Cabbage Patch dolls for the world!" The l0-year-old is starting secondary school in Hong Kong and is necessarily the linguist in the family. Like her brother and sisters, she speaks fluent American English and Shanghainese-her parents' mother tongue, and Mandarin with a Shanghai accent. Since moving to Hong Kong, she has picked up Cantonese and British English, her father says. "When she was younger, if my wife and I didn't want her to know what we were saying, we'd speak in Cantonese," Chia-Wei says. "Now, we can't do that anymore, which is just fine. Our roots have become firmly established in Hong Kong."