Two events of note this week. The IUCA held an online press conference to mark the launch of its declaration to the G20, exerting them to commit to post-COVID investments that prioritised carbon reduction and climate change mitigation (/https://www.universitiesforclimate.org/announcement/). I was one of the people who helped draft this statement. Unfortunately, the event was ambushed…
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If variety is the spice of life then it was a spicy week. We finally had the feedback from the faculty review held in September. Some good commendations, including that the Faculty’s commitment to top-class research was impressive and demonstrated by the awards won by our staff. But naturally some work to do, especially in…
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As the annual cycle goes round we had our information day for the applicants interested in joining us in 2021 but, as so many things are at the moment, it was held online. Still it is good to see the year unfolding in the way it should even if we need to use new ways…
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It is always good to see people in the Faculty doing well. This week was the annual ceremony to honour those who have won various university awards for excellence. This year we had several winners: David Baker – outstanding young researcher; Pauline CHIU and Caroline Dingle both outstanding teaching awards; WK Ching – outstanding research…
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It is reading week this week, which means that we have reached the midpoint of the semester. We have been able to run our normal range of field courses, which true to form were disrupted for a day by a typhoon that was just strong enough to tip Hong Kong into a T8 warning resulting…
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We finally managed to hold the last event of the 80th anniversary celebrations. Originally scheduled for the day of the banquet almost a year ago, then rescheduled for April which got cancelled due to Covid, we managed to hold a virtual celebration to honour our most notable alumni. The Faculty has invested in some good…
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Only a three-day working week this week. National Day (71st Anniversary of the founding of PRC) coincided with Mid-autumn festival this year, removing Thursday and Friday from the working week. In Mainland China there is an entire ‘golden week’ of public holiday to mark the National Day, but in Hong Kong we are restricted to…
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In HKU every Faculty should be reviewed on a five year cycle. We were supposed to be examined at the end of 2019, but events intervened! So the review is happening now, a virtual review held online. Our review panel is based on the east coast of the USA, which is just about the worst…
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A couple of notable achievements this week, first one of chemistry professors – Zheng Xiao Guo was elected to the Academia Europea, a huge statement to the quality of his work. Second and so important to their careers we had two members of the Faculty recognised by being given the NSFC Young Scientists Award –…
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Two teaching weeks done now, both offering online teaching only. So far things are going OK. One more week online, then ‘dual mode’ starts. Not sure what I think about dual mode teaching, I am worried that it will produce mediocre online experience as teachers focus on the face-to-face element. We will see!
