Appointments and Governance
Court and Council
The Court is the University’s highest advisory
body while the Council is the supreme governing
body. With the support of the Court and under
the guidance of the Council Chairman Dr the
Hon Marvin Cheung, the University amended its
Ordinance and Statutes in June 2008.
The amendments, as passed by the Legislative
Council of the HKSAR, served two objectives:
to create a new position of Provost to meet the
operational needs of the University for the four-
year undergraduate curriculum, and to rationalize
the composition and size of the Council for more
effective governance.
In the interest of operational efficiency and public
accountability, two principles were observed in
making the amendments to the Ordinance: keeping
the size of the Council small, and maintaining the 2:1
ratio of external vs internal members.
Following these principles, three new seats were
added to the Council: one for the new position
of Provost, one for a staff member, and one for a
student member. At the same time, 10 seats were
removed from the Council: one from external
members, three public officers, two from Vice-
Presidents, three from Deans, and one from
academic representatives of the Senate. These
changes will take effect from 1 September 2009,
and bring the overall size of the Council to 27
members compared to 34 currently.
Consequential and other changes to the Statutes
have also been made during the period under review.
Two new Statutes relating to the elections of a staff
member and a student member to the Council have
been introduced.
Senate
The Senate is the supreme academic body of the
University. Under its leadership, there have been
on-going discussions since 2004 to establish a
framework for four-year undergraduate programs
to be implemented in 2012. The broad consensus
reached covers three key features:
(a) students should be given as much flexibility as
possible to choose their Major (with the final
choice being postponed to the second year of
study);
(b) o p p o r t u n i t i e s s h o u l d b e c r e a t e d f o r
interdisciplinary studies, including Majors
designed to integrate different disciplines;
(c) student’s education should be inquiry-led and
with the aim of enabling them to develop broad
intellectual competency in addition to acquiring
knowledge in specialized areas.
Guided by this consensus, active planning has been
conducted through working groups at both the
University and School levels, as well as through
well-attended faculty brain-storming sessions and
open forums. The Senate has endorsed a planning
framework for the four-year undergraduate degree,
and the University has proceeded steadily to the
next level of planning. Further enhancement to the
template of the planning framework is underway.
HKUST 2007-2008 Annual Report
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