A University President

Joseph Sung (沈祖堯), formerly vice-chancellor and president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong,  is quite well-known among university students. He tried hard to interact with the students, to understand them, and to guide them in the way that he believes university students should behave. As far as I can tell, from his writings and speeches, he wants them to love learning, to be curious, to follow their own hearts, to be humble and respectful towards their teachers as well as others, and be responsible.  There are many things in his new book that I find quite agreeable.  And I would like to think that service-learning is an excellent way to achieve some of the qualities that he has been promoting.  

One incident involving him stuck in my mind.  In 2016 we were organising a conference on service-learning to be held on our campus.  Because of his popularity among students and what we knew about his views towards community engagement, we decided to invite him to be a keynote speaker for the conference.  We didn’t quite know how he would respond, given that there is certainly an atmosphere of friendly competition among the universities in Hong Kong.   It turned out he accepted very quickly.  I remember going over to his office to brief him on the conference, and he was very kind and courteous, even though he was very busy.  

We were all very excited.  When he actually came to speak at the conference, he talked about his own experience, particularly in going with the students to carry out community service projects in China.  It was quite touching and very well received.  

People may not realise it is not common for the president of a university in Hong Kong to speak at another university in Hong Kong.  You are more likely to see the president of a university from the Mainland, or some foreign country, speaking at your university, rather than one from another university in Hong Kong.  I leave it to you to explain why.