19 September 2013

Dear Alumni,

CityU has taken great strides in its very short history. As President of this dynamic university, I am privileged to launch this quarterly alumni newsletter. It will provide me with an additional communication channel with all of you and enable me to share with you directly news about the latest developments of the University. Your strong support and constructive feedback are essential to sustaining the vitality of your alma mater.

As you may know, CityU has resubmitted to the University Grants Committee (UGC) in December 2012 our proposal to establish an internationally accredited School of Veterinary Medicine. The School aims to develop into a centre of excellence in public health, food safety and animal welfare in the region, and create new career paths for the next generation.

Together with the world’s leading College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University, we are proposing a dual degree programme between the two institutions in which students will receive both Cornell and CityU veterinary degrees. Our planning team and Cornell partners met on 16 July with the international panel of experts set up by UGC to review our proposal, and had a very productive discussion. The University will be organising an International Symposium on Animal Welfare from 21 to 22 November to mark the establishment of a Centre for Animal Welfare at CityU.

Another significant development is our increasingly internationalised campus, especially in terms of our faculty diversity. This year we recruited 45 outstanding new faculty members from North America and Europe, 21 from Hong Kong, 12 from Asia and 2 from Africa and South America. They will enhance teaching and research with the richness of their perspectives and experiences, and further help to attract high quality students to CityU campus to realise the goals of our professional education.

For the past five years, CityU has been performing outstandingly well in various international ranking exercises. In addition, two of our faculty members have won the prestigious UGC Teaching Excellence Award, in 2012 and 2013. I am also pleased to share with you that CityU graduates are well placed in the job market, as revealed in our latest graduate exit survey statistics.

These are great results, and a tribute to our dedicated and hardworking colleagues. I look forward to sharing more of our significant developments with you in future. I would like to offer my best wishes to all our alumni and their families at the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Best wishes,

Way Kuo

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