New appointments
Professor Lu Jian has joined CityU as Dean of College of Science and Engineering this month. He was previously Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Associate Dean of Engineering at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Professor Lu's appointment was based on the unanimous recommendation of the University's Search Group and Selection Committee after a vigorous global search.

Dr Cheung Chor-yung has been appointed as Dean of Students with effect from 1 September 2010. The appointment is concurrent with Dr Cheung's position as Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Public and Social Administration. Reporting to the Vice-President for Student Affairs, Dr Cheung will be responsible for policy development and administration of the Office of Vice-President for Student Affairs, particularly in matters relating to social, recreational and co-curricular programmes, counselling and student welfare activities. Dr Cheung will play an important role in the implementation of the Strategic Plan on student learning and facilitating the transition from the existing 3-year to a 4-year degree structure in 2012.  

Eminent Speaker Lecture Series
Mr Christiaan Kröner, Secretary-General of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in the Netherlands, will deliver a talk at CityU on "The Role of Arbitration in a Globalizing World: A Vision of the Future" on 13 September. Mr Kröner was appointed Ambassador-at-Large and Deputy Director-General Political Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague; Consul-General in Munich; and Deputy Head, Directorate Atlantic Cooperation and Security Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague.

Technology Transfer Forum
There will be a technology transfer forum on recent advances in wireless communications on 15 September with presentations by Professor Xue Quan, Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves and Professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering (EE); Dr Lau Kwok-wai, a Research Fellow of the Laboratory; Professor Luk Kwai-man, Director of the Laboratory of Millimeter Waves and Chair Professor of EE; and Professor Edward Yung Kai-ning, Chair Professor of EE.

City Cultural Salon
The next City Cultural Salon will take place on 28 September. The event will be organised by the Cultural and Sports Committee and will feature Professor Way Kuo, CityU President, giving a talk on "The Distance Between Eastern and Western Tertiary Education Development" in Putonghua. The talk will take place in the Chinese Civilisation Centre at 7pm.

CityU Alumni Forum
Professor Frederick Ma Si-hang will share his experience about culinary arts and his philosophy of life at the "CityU Alumni Forum: From Gourmet Delights to Flavours of Life" on 27 September. Professor Way Kuo, CityU President, will demonstrate his signature dish at the event, which will be organised by the Alumni Relations Office, to illustrate his thoughts about life. For registration details, please visit http://aro.cityu.edu.hk/events/forum2010/.

Career centre renamed
The CityU career centre was renamed after the late grandmother of distinguished alumnus Mr Andrew Fan Ka-fai, Regional President of the Greater China Region for Nu Skin Enterprises Inc, at an appreciation ceremony on 7 September. The new name is the Fan Lee Foon Student Career Centre. Mr Fan is a staunch supporter and generous contributor to the University. He graduated from the first cohort of the Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies programme, was an elected councillor in the first and second CityU Students' Union and Chairman of the second Students' Union Council. He was appointed Chairman of the Provisional Standing Committee of the Convocation and a Member of the Council of CityU in 2007.

3+3+4 website
The Office of the Provost has launched a new online resource as part of its preparations for the new 4-year degree structure, which will start in 2012. The main aim of the 3+3+4 Academic Reform website is updating stakeholders on essential information and new developments regarding curricula reform. The site can be found at http://www.cityu.edu.hk/334.

Kudos
Xu Yang, an MPhil student in the Department of Electronic Engineering, was awarded the Best Student Paper Award at the 2010 International Conference of Data Mining and Knowledge Engineering (ICDMKE'10) in London, 30 June–2 July. Her research project was "Efficient self-organizing map learning scheme using data reduction preprocessing" and her supervisor was Professor Tommy Chow Wai-shing. ICDMKE'10 was held under the World Congress on Engineering (WCE) 2010, which is organised by the International Association of Engineers and serves as a platform for the engineering community to meet and exchange ideas.

Hu Songyu, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Management (MEEM) received the 2010 SLAS Young Scientist Award from the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) at the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) in Toronto, Canada, 21–24 August, for his paper entitled "Dynamics analysis and closed-loop control of biological cells in transportation using robotic manipulation system with optical tweezers." The paper was co-authored with MEEM's Professor Sun Dong and Chair Professor Gary Feng Gang, under the supervision of Professor Sun. Hu Songyu will present his paper at the SLAS annual conference and exhibition in California in January 2011 and will be featured in the SLAS peer-reviewed Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation.

Annual Report accolade
CityU has earned a Bronze Award in the category of "Cover Photo/Design: University" in the 2010 International ARC Awards, an international competition that honours outstanding achievement in annual reports.