President e-letter, 19 October 2013

Abstract

The Hong Kong University lf Science and Technology Office of the President e-letter HKUST Dragon Boat Fun Race 2013 - Soft-launching of HKUST Water Sports Centre Dear Colleagues, Students and Alumni, Yesterday, I hosted a flag-presentation ceremony to over 30 student sports clubs to signify their pledge to represent HKUST in the upcoming inter-varsity sports events with other institutions. Three of them are related to water sports i.e. Dragon Boat Club, Rowing Club, Swimming Club. As you can see, HKUST is situated right next to one of the best water areas in Hong Kong. Our campus is ideal for a range of water sports including dragon boat, sea rowing, windsurfing, kayaking, sailing and so on. It would be such a great pity if we do nothing and stay disconnected from the seafront. Therefore, I as the President have decided to take full advantage of our enviable natural endowment and throw full support to developing water sports right here at HKUST. Our vision for developing sports, not just water sports, is truly educational. We aspire to create an environment where our students can pursue common interest of sportsmanship, develop their fine competitive spirit, form a sense of esprit de corps, and foster the virtues of discipline, resilience and excellence. This resonates with our mission to give all students a holistic campus life experience that will prepare them to become the future leaders and lifelong learners. We can also enable our faculty, staff and alumni to come together and build up their affinity with the University to the next level. Today, we have inaugurated our first HKUST Dragon Boat Fun Race with the beautiful seafront as our backdrop. A total of 30 dragon boat teams, each consisting of 12 racers, have signed up to compete for prizes under the HKUST Cup (professional category) and the Rookies Cup (open category). It turns out to be a good mix of students, alumni and staff. Nothing can say more about the 1-HKUST concept than the interesting statistics of our racers today: 33% local students, 26% international students, 11% Mainland students, 22% alumni, 8% staff. Do you also know how many student and alumni volunteers we have recruited for helping on the event today? More than 50! Today is also special in the sense that we are taking the opportunity to soft-launch the HKUST Water Sports Centre with 5 key dimensions in mind i.e. : Education and Training – we will adopt a three-pronged approach: Step 1 Off-site water sports training with external partners Step 2 On-site water sports training conducted at HKUST with qualified coaches Step 3 Get recognized as a professional training centre for targeted water sports Home Port Development – the HKUST seafront will become the home port for our water sports clubs and teams. They no longer need to bother to travel to Sai Kung or Stanley to practise. It will all start here from HKUST. Water Sports Clubs – the active involvement of students, staff and alumni water sports clubs is important to the sustainable development of water sports at HKUST. External Partnership and Events – we have opened up strategic dialogues with many water sports associations and invited many of their leaders to be with us today. We will continue to talk to the different associations and welcome proposals! Phased Built-out Strategy – we will be building our infrastructure by phases to support overall development of water sports. The pontoon next to the pier jetty as you can see now is only one small step towards our goal. Subject to resources, we can envision that more boat storage and other facilities will be built along the seafront in future. And, we would need your help to make all these come true! Hopefully, your relationship with the HKUST’s Water Sports Center does not stop here just for one single kick-off event. We are looking forward to a long term partnership with all of you. Let me congratulate all of you on organizing such a great event today, especially the student and alumni volunteers. I know it is not easy and it shows spirit of the 1-HKUST Community. Thank you! See you all next time! Yours sincerely, Tony F Chan President 19 October 2013 Archive: - Please select - Copyright ? 2014 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - Please select - 19 October 2013