Honorary University Fellows

Citation for Dr Michael Lau delivered by Professor C Y Jim, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the Honorary University Fellowships Presentation Ceremony on December 12, 2002:

Dr Michael Lau Wai Mai has devoted most of his working life to the University of Hong Kong. A graduate of our Faculty of Arts he returned to the University in 1961 as assistant curator at the Fung Ping Shan Museum.

Over the following 36 years, up until his retirement as Executive Director in 1997, he oversaw the remarkable evolution of the museum from a small exhibition room, in the corner of the Fung Ping Shan Library, to a world-class University Museum, occupying both the Fung Ping Shan building and three floors of the T T Tsui Building.

In addition to his curatorship, Dr Lau taught Chinese literature in the Department of Chinese for 16 years as well as courses in Chinese Art in the Department of Fine Arts from 1981 to 1996.

Beyond the University Dr Lau has been active in the community, serving government boards and civic societies. In 1997 he received royal recognition of his services to society, particularly to the Antiquities Advisory Board and the Archaeology Committee of which he is Chairman, when he was awarded the MBE. He is honorary advisor to the Hong Kong Museum of History and has been a Council member of the Royal Asiatic Society, Honorary Chinese Secretary of the Oriental Ceramic Society and an Executive Committee and Management Committee member of the Hong Kong Catholic Marriage Advisory Council.

It gives me very great pleasure, Mr Pro-Chancellor, to present Dr Michael Lau for the Honorary University Fellowship in recognition of his services to the University and to Hong Kong.