Honorary University Fellows

Citation for Ms Serena Yang Hsueh-chi written and delivered by Dr Gabriel M Leung at the Honorary University Fellowships Presentation Ceremony on December 15, 2005:

Chinese in ancestry, born and brought up in Japan, Serena Yang Hsueh-chi grew up in a multicultural environment thus inculcating in her a lifelong passion for global understanding that transcends national borders.

After completing undergraduate studies in arts and literature, forty years would pass before Yang returned to academia, a period during which she was busy “being a mother of five”. At 62, she joined this University and developed a passionate interest in the history of Freudian psychoanalysis particularly as it relates to Japan.

A serendipitous encounter sparked her journey from being an enthusiastic onlooker to undertaking in-depth research in the subject as a serious academic. Once before a trip to Japan, Yang asked her then psychology instructor, and now Acting Dean of Social Science, Dr Geoffrey Blowers if there was anything she could bring back for him. “Yes, research!” came the reply. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration with HKU colleagues where she has translated many Japanese manuscripts, traced and researched the beginnings of psychoanalysis in Japan, and disseminated her scholarship in academic periodicals and at international conferences.

Respected as an advocate for and supporter of the University and its constituent departments, Yang's philanthropic legacy is equally expressive of the breadth of her mind and spirit. She is a founding member and currently Honorary Patron of the HKU Foundation. Through the "Yang Hsueh Chi Staff Research Fund" and the "Yang Hsueh Chi Education Fund", she provides continuing support for scholarly pursuits in the Department of Psychology. Yang was also instrumental in the establishment of a psychology student exchange programme between HKU, Oxford and Cambridge. On the medical campus, she has endowed a professorship in vascular surgery and donated to the Department of Nursing Studies which houses the Serena Yang Library. Most recently, Yang contributed to the University's globalisation initiative by supporting the "Global Lounge", which is a new international student centre.

Sigmund Freud once lamented, “If youth knew; if age could.” Yang has surely defied the subject of her scholarship on the latter count.

With deep admiration, I commend to you, Mr Pro-Chancellor, Ms Serena Yang Hsueh-chi for the Honorary University Fellowship.