Professor Jay Siegel’s path to academia was never a foregone conclusion. He came from a blue-collar family – his father was a foreman in a plastics factory – and he started off at California State University, Northridge, intending to become a pharmacist. But a shift began to happen soon after Professor Siegel entered university. His mentor, Professor Ed Rosenberg, inspired him to pursue organic chemistry and undertake research, leading to his acceptance at Princeton University as a graduate student, an achievement that launched him on a stellar career. Professor Siegel became a tenured professor at the University of California, San Diego, then took up leadership roles at the University of Zurich, Tianjin University (he was the first foreign dean of a school there) and now, HKU. Arriving in 2024 as Senior Advisor to the President, he was recently appointed Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) and is bringing insights gained from working across three continents. “The purpose of a university is to empower the individual to become an independent scholar who can develop her or his own belief structure and create, critique and curate knowledge,” he said. “A high-powered university like HKU already attracts talented students who are on that path. It would be too easy to credit all their success to the University’s influence, which is why a different way of thinking is needed. Our mission is to transform and empower students further than they would achieve otherwise and ensure their personal betterment.” The new Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), Professor Jay Siegel, wants students to be transformed by their experience at HKU, beyond what they learn through their programmes. Agent of “We have to go deep into our majors, because only experts with an appreciation of broader problems can contribute in a meaningful way. We need scholar experts with a great appreciation of the interdisciplinary problems of the day and the mental faculties to address them,” he said. Expertise is also necessary for making the most of AI, which Professor Siegel regards as a highly effective tool. As with tools of the past, the greatest benefits are reaped by those who already understand their field and what this new tool can do for them, he said. But all of this must be underpinned by communitybuilding. There are lots of ideas to be fleshed out and he will engage with people across campus in the process, guided by a concept close to his heart: that the very act of building, more than pre-conceived plans, will inform how to build going forward. “We need to go fearlessly and look at all the things that we are doing and ask if they will be fit for purpose three to five years from now. The ‘building’ will inform us. If we are active, if we are attentive, we will start making the necessary changes.” A life on campus Central to that mission is campus culture. “If we want our students to be absolute world changers, one of the crucial actions is to create a transformative student experience and campus life where graduates will say they are more of a scholar, more confident in their belief structure, than when they entered. We should be assisting them in that educational evolution so they can become better leaders and capable of leading social change.” Professor Siegel believes the way to do that is to facilitate human interaction on campus beyond the curriculum and classroom. “A university needs to become a community – a scholars’ garden, if you will,” he said. That means creating and supporting spaces where students and faculty can gather to eat, be entertained, be active or find solitude, alongside people of different expertise or from their own disciplines. Such spaces exist at HKU, but Professor Siegel believes they should be reinvigorated to create a more vibrant campus life. “I want every student and faculty member, when they’re heading home or sitting down to dinner, to wish they were still on campus where, at 8pm, they would find scholars milling around talking, or stumble on interesting discussions or events,” he said. “Great universities around the world inspire that sense of community – of a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.” The idea of shared expertise is important to the concept. If you are a biology major who is curious about art history or quantum computing, you should expect to be able to find an expert colleague on campus who can enlighten you, he said. “I want to hammer this home,” he said. “I want students and faculty members to say that when they have a question outside their expertise, they are able to find an expert they can go to and have a cup of coffee and a discussion with, and walk away with a deeper understanding of that topic. That is the community we are striving for.” Professor Jay Siegel A university needs to become a community – a scholars’ garden, if you will. Professor Siegel at the 214th Congregation Ceremony of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Valuing expertise Within that vision is a high regard for disciplinary expertise. Although Professor Siegel recognises many problems require interdisciplinary solutions – he helped establish two interdisciplinary schools at HKU, the School of Innovation and the School of Biomedical Engineering – he believes success depends firstly on expertise. This means not only domain knowledge but also the acquired ability to apply and manipulate that knowledge in flexible and creative ways. Change HKU Bulletin | Nov 2025 People 42 43
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