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HKUST 2015-2016 Annual Report
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UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
2015-16 heralded the successful completion of the
transition to the four-year degree program. During the
year, the graduation ceremony for the final three-year
degree program students took place and the first
four-year cohort finished their last year of studies.
Four-year Program Mid-term Review
To gain early feedback on implementation and
effectiveness of the four-year degrees, a University-
wide mid-term review was conducted, with input from
students, faculty members, teaching staff, and staff
involved in student affairs and academic support
units. While the final report is expected to be available
at the end of 2016, preliminary observations suggest
that the new undergraduate programs were launched
relatively smoothly, generally well received with many
positive comments from students, and implemented
smoothly, with graduation taking place in a timely
way. Success in achieving graduate outcomes and
whether programs are flexible enough to benefit a
diverse student population will need several more
years to assess fully. However, the mid-term review will
provide invaluable feedback for fine-tuning.
Experiential Courses and Entrepreneurship
As the degree program transition has taken place,
tri-modal education has become a major focus,
emphasizing cross-disciplinary courses, active learning
and in-depth academic engagement. In tri-modal
education, expanded offerings in experiential learning
help to increase enthusiasm for teaching innovation.
During the year, seven more experiential courses were
proposed and funded by teaching development
grants and some 15 courses with experiential
components offered to around 500 students.
Several minor and major programs were also
developed for Fall 2016 or 2017. The entrepreneurship
minor, jointly offered by the School of Business and
Management and School of Engineering, has been
revamped into a University-level minor offered by all
Schools. The program also has a strong connection
with the Entrepreneurship Center and is part of
the University-level Entrepreneurship Education
Program (EEP). The EEP Committee is responsible
for promoting and coordinating all entrepreneurship
education activities and is housed under the Center
for Education Innovation (formerly the Center for
Enhanced Learning and Teaching).
Pedagogical Innovation through E-learning
Many departments have created or are creating at
least one Massive Open Online Course (MOOC),
reaching learners around the world via the leading
global Coursera and edX platforms. Videos created
for MOOCs also provide e-learning opportunities for
blended learning – combining online and face-to-
face teaching to achieve higher levels of learning –
on campus. Many MOOC videos are already used in
flipped-classroom delivery at the University, whereby
students watch the video lectures first and use class
time to discuss and analyze what they have learned,
fostering more interactive in-class discussions. The
University also launched its first “specialization”, a
series of MOOC courses around a particular topic, on
Teaching and learning have broadened and become more flexible,
with greater emphasis on diversity and innovation in study pathways,
student population, and campus life
EDUCATION
DEVELOPMENT
the Coursera platform. The courses centered on full
stack web development, in particular skills related to
mobile devices, and attracted a total enrolment of over
200,000 learners. Other HKUST-developed MOOC
courses were also highly popular. For example,
“Introduction to Java Programming”, offered on the
edX platform, has been licensed to institutions in
Russia and Saudi Arabia to be translated into their
respective languages.
Sustainability Education
HKUST has set the goal of establishing an educational
and research framework in sustainability education
by 2020 to ensure that students gain a solid
understanding of sustainability concepts, with the
capacity and commitment to solving problems locally
and globally. A broad strategy for sustainability
education was developed. As the first step, a
foundation course “Introduction to Sustainability”
was developed to be launched in Fall 2016 in the
undergraduate common core, to be offered jointly by
the Schools.
Early Research Experience
The University’s signature Undergraduate Research
Opportunities Program (UROP) celebrated its 10th year,
with nearly 400 students engaging in early academic
research under the supervision of over 100 faculty
members over the year. Since the program’s launch
in 2005, some 30% of UROP students have gone on
to pursue postgraduate studies, either in Hong Kong
or in leading overseas higher education institutions.
Driving Forward Campus Diversity
The University continued to strengthen its global
outlook with exchange-in and exchange-out students
reaching around 1,000 each way in 2015-16, enabling
students to learn about different ways of seeing
the world and establish multicultural friendships.
At the inaugural HKUST-Times Higher Education
Asia Universities Summit in June 2016, four more
agreements were signed with the University of
Glasgow, Jagiellonian University, University of Warwick
and University of Waterloo to enhance international
exchange and study opportunities.
Diversity in the student population was further enhanced
by a wide range of scholarships that saw a total of
1,750 undergraduates awarded 2,210 scholarships for
academic and non-academic achievements. Some 20%
of undergraduates were awarded at least one scholarship
award. HKUST students also secured highly regarded and
prestigious tertiary-wide competitive scholarships over
the year, receiving five out of 25 awards in the Innovation
and Technology Scholarship Award Scheme and two
out of 10 awards for non-local new intake in the Targeted
Scholarship Scheme under the Hong Kong government’s
ScholarshipFund.A local undergraduateandpostgraduate
were awarded a Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund
Scholarship and Fellowship respectively.
The University has been committed to fostering faculty
diversity in terms of gender, nationalities and professional
backgrounds, inorder tonourishan intellectually stimulating
climate for our University and offer students with role
models. It is also important to promote our faculty profile
to align with student demographic and international
characteristics. A series of academic and personnel
measures were implemented to step up faculty hiring and
raise awareness in diversity.
Enhancing the 1-HKUST Spirit
An internal reorganization of Student Housing and
the Residential Life Office created greater impetus
for activities that bring residents of different halls
together. Among centralized programs, freshmen
dinners proved to be the stand-out occasions over
the year, enabling new students to meet and talk with
faculty members and senior management, including
the President, Executive Vice-President and Provost,
and Deans, in an informal setting. Other First Year
Residential Life events included workshops on wine
appreciation, social etiquette, and an exhibition
on hall life and eco-awareness. Meanwhile, Residence
