Message from the
·
Vice-Chancellor
As we step into the decade of the 90's, we are taking a step nearer the day when our first students will walk through the entrance at the campus' Piazza. This crescent shaped section will be the main gateway to our campus. Through it, students, statt and visitors will pass to go to their classrooms, laboratories, offices, conference rooms and gymnasia.Since the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony on 8 November 1989, most · of you probably have not had the chance to visit the site. It may be of interest to you to hear a layman's update on progress at our future home, which I visit as otten as I can, about once every two to three weeks.
The profile of the Piazza is now clearly visible, as the superstructure emerges from the ground at two levels. Two floors of the Library Wing are already standing, protruding gently towards the ocean. Foundation work seems completed for the Residential Blocks. The same goes for the Northern Access Road Bridge, across which all trattic leading to the Piazza will pass. If everything continues to move along smoothly, dream will become reality (Phase I) by June 1991, when all of us will be able to enjoy fresh air and light breezes straight from the ocean.
My very warm wishes for a healthy and fruitful Year of the Horse!
The Library under construction, courtesy of Steven Wong, Estates Office
Editorial
Welcome to 1990 and another issue of HKUST Genesis!
As everyone knows, the University .
is expanding rapidly. Many new and exciting things happen each month. The staff of Genesis will work hard this new year to keep you updated on important events and issues in the HKUST family.
The success of this publication depends on contributions from the whole University community. Dead -line for contributions to the next is-sue will be February 6th. Please send articles to the Ottice of Public Affairs: attention of Steve Kong or Mary Lau.
The Lunar New Year is just a few days away. We wish everyone a happy holiday and a successful year ahead!
January 1990
STAFF
INTRODUCTION-SYSTEM PROGRAMMERS,
COMPUTER SERVICES
POETRY
READING
Michael Chan, System Pro-grammer; born Dec 24 in HK; married; graduated from King's College and the Uni-versity of Hong Kong; for-merly of Citibank, N.A.; fa-vourite sports: volleyball and basketball; f avourtte season: autumn.
Lau Fai Ha Sylvia, Adminis-trative Systems Program-mer; born Oct 20 in China; single; graduated from St Paul's Secondary School; formerly of Ctty Polytechnic; favourite sports: tennis and golf; favourite pastime: fam-ily gathering.
Ophelia Yao, Administrative Systems Programmer; born Nov 26 in China; married; graduated from Marykno!I Convent School and Oregon State Universi1y; formerly of HK Polytechnic; favourite sport: swimming; f avouri1e colours: black and red.
PHYSICS
News in Brief
A press conference was held at the 12JF Conference Room on 12th January to introduce recently appointed academic staff.
A ceremony to commemorate the Inauguration of the Biotechnology Research Institute was held on 16th Janu-ary in Hong Kong Hotel. Sir SY Chung, GBE, JP, and Vice-Chancellor Prof Chia-Wei Woo presided over the ceremony.
Staff Movement
Welcome Aboard, new staff!
Admissions, Reoistration & Records: Mr G G O'Brien; Computer Centre: Mr Mak Lai-ming, Donald, Mrs Wong Poon Kit-Chun, Letty;
.ES:
tate..s.:
Mr Lam Kin-lai; Finance: Mr Cheng Kit-ming, Ms Lam Yau-fung, Ms Fu Miu-Ian; General-Administration
&
Committees: Miss Lo Hoi-lin, Gloria; Personnel: Miss Fung Mun-wah, Mabel, Mrs Wat Tsang Kwai-ching, Alice; Plannino&
Coordination: Ms Cheung Yin-ping, Agnes. Resignation:Personnel: Miss Yuen Chau-kuen, Anita.
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Highlights of Academic Meetings
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...11th January, 1990
HEART vs HEAD
In thanking Mr Michael Gale of the
Hongkong Telecom for hosting a dinner for the
.
academics, Prof Chih-Yung Chi
eWs
aid, "people
.
use their heads to make rational decisions.
However, the really important decisions are
usually made with their hearts in an irrational
way.
Eighteen
months ago when my wife and
I first came to Hong Kong, we had an
opportu-nity to get together with some of the council
members including Mr Gale
and
Mr Poon.
Each
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spoke about his support forthe dream of HK UST.
It was very clear that their decisions were from
their hearts
.
Many of our academics made
agonizing decisions to come to HKUST
be-cause they listened
to
their hearts instead of
their heads. It is these illogical decisions that
will produce magics. We at the university and
you from the community are of the same heart
.
Together we shall succeed."
RESEARCH vs DEVELOPMENT
"The
primary mission of a university is to
create and disseminate knowledge. The
re-search we do must be relevant to this mission,
i.e., it should be both basic and applied re
-search. However, it requires strong financial
support to do credible research. If part of the
understandable that we should help the private sector to solve their problems because we have the staff with the ability to solve difficult prob-lems. The issues related to these problems may or may not be suitable for postgraduate thesis research since they are quite
develop-. mental in nature. However, we should convince the private sector that in order for us to help solve problems, we also need their support for our basic and applied research related to the creation of knowledge since that is the only way to assure that our faculty will stay in the leading edge of science and technology. In other words, we should support the local private sector's needs and in turn seek their support for our academic research. This should be the prin-ciple, although the actual implementation re-mains to be thought through. At the same time, we must not lose our focus in our mission on education, in the creation and dissemination of knowledge. HKUST will indeed be a special university with great challenges. We will take up many types of work to assist the economic development of Hong Kong as indicated by the HKUST mandate and we may set up organisa-tions to perform these assignments. However, I would like to assure you, our first and foremost mission is education and research."
Concluding remarks by Prof Chien
BIOLOGY vs CHEMISTRY
The following terminologies are used quite frequently in the curriculum planning discus-sion but are not necessarily interchargeable.
biochemistry, chemical biology,
·chemical behaviour of biological systems, bio-logical effects in chemical systems, physical biochemistry, physical chemistry in biological systems, etc.
--12th January, 1990
1997 and BRAIN DRAIN
In a press conference in which recently appointed senior academics were introduced, some questions and answers went like this :
Repor1er:
Because of 1997, many Hong Kong people are seeking immigration abroad, why do you give up what you have and come to Hong Kong
?
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!
I
i
I I I i I IProfessor:
If it were not for the 1997, some of us would not
be here.
Reporter:
What do you think of the brain drain in Hong
Kong?
Professor:
It is time that we begin to do something about
the brain drain instead of just worrying about it.
What you are seeing now is the reverse brain
drain. Perhaps, one may conclude that there
are actions which can be taken to reverse the
tide.
SONG and DINNER
Another dinner was given with added
ingredi-ents
-
- songs. One of them went like this,
"remember when we were young, you loved to
talk and I loved to smile. One day we were
sitting under a peach tree, the breeze brushed
the branches and birds were singing.
Some-how we went to sleep while flower petals were
falling in the dream."
13th January, 1990
Very very brief descriptions of the activity :
Campus site visit: Fantastic
-
.
-
;~
Meeting with Transport Branch
Ground work
Library: The best in the world
Computer Service :
Almost the best in the world
Research Institutes: Tough
School of Business
&Management: Milton
Freidman running wild
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-14th January, 1990
Sunday, no meetings!!! A boat trip was
planned to sail from Tsimshatsui to Clear Water
Bay.
Then, a landing from the sea to the
HKUST campus would be attempted to plant a
flag. Soon after we cast off, it became apparent
that the sailing would not be smooth and
.
a:Jew
'
professors were obviously having hard times.
Vice Chancellor then ordered a retreat and we
spent the day somewhere else. Although the
trip was quite pleasant, our first attempt to claim
the campus was a total failure.
15th January, 1990
Reality sank in and we began to face
problems. Desperation was everywhere.
16th January, 1990
BIOTECHNOLOGY
The Biotechnology Research Institute was
inaugurated at the Hong Kong hotel.
Presenta-tions by the scholars and experts included the
following :
-
A monkey with its blood completely drained
eating bananps after injection of artificial blood.
-
The colon cancer of a white male before
and after
"
biotechnology" treatment.
-
How to open holes in the membrane of
your cells.
-
Vegetable oil and toxic waste eating bac
-teria.
Looking for fishes using satellites
.
Making "super fish" more tasteful.
Biomedical engineers
-
repairmen of your
body.
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17th January, 1990
Are we going to be friends any more
?
Farewell.
e
&R.E.E.TttJ&S
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/
Graphically Speaking:
This month: organisation chartType 1: The Typical Top Down
Type 2: To Serve the People
Type 3: Centralisation
Type 4: The Wheel and Deal
Type 5: The Localisation Scheme
·The Hong Kong Subway Sys1em
i ---.i.---. ··-·.
ON THE
LIGHT SIDE
Easy as PieJanuary
1990
Peter DobsonDuring the half year I have been at HKUST, I have had the good fortune to learn just
a
tiny bit about the policies and methods used by government in !jong,Kong for budgeting. Norman NGAI. Director of FJrii nce, explained it all to me. It is really quite simple, just like cut1ing up a pie.
First, there is a recurrent budget. This covers aH the things we need money for on a yearly basis. There is also
a
capital budget. This is also money we need to spend every year, but on things we can't put in the recurrent budget. These two budgets bear an important relationship to one another: when we are asking for funding in the recurrent budget, we are told it belongs in the capital budget; when we ask for the same thing in the.capital budget, we are told it should have been included in the recurrent budget. This is known as 'fiscal respon
-sibility.'
To get any money at all for next year, we had to prepare
a
five-year estimate for government. Actually one of the five years is the current year, for which government has already foolishly given us some money, so we can estimate pretty darned well how much money we have for that one. The second year in the estimate is how much we want next year. Each of the remaining three years is what the financial experts call a 'wild guess.' To get money the year after next, we have to produce a triennium (three-year) estimate for UPGC. So far, for two years worth of funding, we will have done eight years of estimating (or guessing, if you insist on the technical term). But, as I said earlier, it's really very simple.For example, the capital budget will cover furniture and equipment. That's simple enough. Of course, we have a separate budget for specialist equipment, but that's only a minor complication. And government asked us break down our request into basic teaching equipment vs furniture and general equipment. Wait a minute, the furniture also had to be broken down into building-dependent furniture and loose furniture. Of course, most of the loose furniture depends on the building to keep it out of the weather, and some of the building-dependent furniture is loose (or can be pried loose). But never mind. it's really very simple.
January 1990
Jay: Look at this wonderlul product of biotechnology.
WHAT A
TVE<.KEY I/ I
...
And the winner of the grand prize is ... Mecell Lee!
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