HKU Bulletin

A DVC on His Rocker

The new Deputy Vice-Chancellor/Provost, Professor Roland Chin, talks about his role at HKU and what it means to be a world-class university.

Professor Roland Chin must be the only person in Hong Kong to have an old maple rocking chair in his office. He recovered it from a farmhouse in the US and refurbished it himself and he likes to sit there, rocking, when he has a quiet moment to think. The chair is supposed to remind him to take it easy, but there is little chance of that happening any time soon. Professor Chin is a renowned computer scientist, member of numerous educational and technology public bodies, including chairman of the Research Grants Council, a keen cyclist and now Deputy Vice-Chancellor/Provost. He was formerly Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Deputy President at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

“I was surprised that I was approached by HKU and I was surprised that I said yes. But it was a quick decision. I am the type of person who doesn’t drag things out: it’s either yes or no. So within a few hours, I said sure, I’d love to accept this position,” he said.

The Attractions of HKU

What persuaded him was the chance to take on a much larger, more complex challenge. HKU has a long history, ten faculties to HKUST’s four, and some very high expectations to live up to locally and globally. The University has traditionally been the training ground of Hong Kong’s leaders and in recent years it has been ranked best in Asia and among the top 25 universities in the world.

“When I think about HKU, there are five distinct features that always come to mind. One is that HKU is international. Two, HKU is world-class, or if not yet it should be world-class.”

“Three, HKU is a research-intensive university, meaning we continue to innovate.”

“Four, HKU is comprehensive, meaning we are strong in most of the major areas of study.”

“And five, HKU is closely tied to the community. We produce most if not all leaders in Hong Kong and the region and we get tremendous support from the community, which means we have to continue this tradition of producing the next generation of leaders.”

“I don’t want to get into justifying whether HKU is world-class or top in the region, but I think we could do even better. And doing better means moving towards these five characteristics and moving towards world-class.”

Professor Chin measures world-class by whether HKU attracts the brightest students and the best academics in the world, not just Hong Kong or the region.

“World-class means top people want to come here,” he says. “Are the best students from around the world coming to HKU? Are all our professors the best in their disciplines?”

A Rare Opportunity

He sees tremendous progress towards this goal and a window of opportunity. HKU’s advantages include its strong articulated vision of being a world-class, international, research-intensive university; a new curriculum featuring the innovative Common Core, which is attractive to both local and international students; and globally-renowned research strengths in such areas as medicine, law and many others that it is developing strategically.

“[Higher education] is a growing sector in Hong Kong, while in places like the US and Europe, it is shrinking in terms of funding, hiring freezes and lay-offs.”

“So now is a good opportunity for not only HKU but Hong Kong to recruit world-class professors and the best and the brightest students, who might not have a chance to get into their university of choice elsewhere.”

“This opportunity might last five years, it might last longer. But it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With additional funding from government and support from the community, we can move ahead, we can move up, while other parts of the world are contracting.”

Professor Chin’s role in capitalizing on this opportunity is to ’drive academics’, meaning he will oversee academic planning, programmes, student admission, staff recruitment and the achievement of those world-class standards over the coming years. His first priority? “I have to learn the HKU system and find the bathroom and the canteen,” he jokes, adding: “Knowing the people is most important. In order to further excel, it will be essential to have a collective strategy, a well thought out plan of execution, and a team of colleagues who share the same conviction.” Which is why the chair, which he has dragged across the ocean and kept close at hand for more than 20 years, will keep rocking.