College renamed
The Council has approved the re-titling of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences to the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences with the aim of reaching out to, and cooperating across, diverse academic disciplines. The new title will be effective from 1 January 2011.

CityU Eminence Society
A newly formed alumni body, CityU Eminence Society, has been established with the mission to unite senior alumni to proactively contribute their resources, expertise and networks to help advance the University and serve the community. An official Launching Ceremony cum Inauguration of the First Executive Committee will be held on 13 December. Guests officiating at the ceremony are Dr Norman Leung Nai-pang, Pro-Chancellor, The Hon Leung Chun-ying, Council Chairman, and Professor Way Kuo, University President.

Technology Transfer Forum
The next Technology Transfer Forum organised by the Knowledge Transfer Office will cover Environmental Pollution and Technologies. It will be held on 16 December. Speakers at the forum are Dr Richard Cheung Yun-hing, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and Chemistry, Dr James Lam Chung-wah, Scientific Officer of the State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, and Dr Oscar Hui Kwan-san, Lecturer of the Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management.

Homecoming Gala
The CityU Homecoming Gala, organised by the Alumni Relations Office, will be held on 12 December on campus. Alumni, staff, students and families are all welcome to join this fun-filled event. Highlights include a movie screening, a concert, exhibitions and interactive activities for children. The Gala is a day for and organised by alumni, showcasing the versatility, diversity and caring spirit of our CityU community.

Talk by CityU’s Founding Director
Professor David Johns, the Founding Director of the (now) City University of Hong Kong, will offer some reflections on his distinguished career as an aerospace engineer and university administrator at a talk titled “Travels of an Engineer” on 10 December. Professor Johns led CityU for six years and was later appointed as Vice Chancellor at Bradford University in charge of the education/training of health professionals in nine discipline areas.

Goff Arbitration Lecture
The School of Law is organising the 17th Annual Goff Arbitration Lecture, titled “A Model Form of Procedural Order Relating to Confidentiality in Arbitration”. The speaker is Justice Michael Hwang S C, Chief Justice of the Dubai International Financial Centre and Senior Counsel and Arbitrator in Singapore. Mr Hwang has over 40 years of experience in the legal arena. He is currently Singapore’s Non-Resident Ambassador to Switzerland and sits on the advisory boards of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.

Good governance workshop
A two-day international workshop titled “Good Governance in the Asia-Pacific Region: Civil and Political Society” jointly organised by the Governance in Asia Research Centre and the Southeast Asia Research Centre with the Griffith Asia Research Institute of Griffith University, Australia, will be held at CityU from 9 to 10 December. Participants will present findings on current research into relations between civil society, governance and democracy in the Asia-Pacific region and evaluate, question and challenge some conventional understandings of these relations in the existing literature and in the broader discourse on governance and democratic reform.

Reflections on Zhang Taiyan
The First International Symposium on Intellectual Thought and Scholarship in East Asia: Zhang Taiyan and Late Qing Chinese Scholarship will be held from 21 to 22 December at CityU. The aim is to study Mr Zhang Taiyan and his work as a key to the reexamination of Chinese modernity. Zhang was one of modern China’s most important philologists, linguists, and philosophers, as well as social, political and literary critics. He was also an important person in the Revolution of 1911. Zhang’s work constitutes a kind of comprehensive conglomeration of learning, both modern and traditional, from East and West, encompassing both Late Qing China and Meiji-era Japan. The symposium is being organised by the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics and the University of Tokyo Centre for Philosophy.

Forum on healthcare financing
Government, political and social leaders will take part in a roundtable forum at CityU to discuss reforms for healthcare financing in Hong Kong, focusing on the merits, limitations and alternatives to government proposals. The forum is titled “Medical Financing: Voluntary Insurance as the Way Out?” and is co-organised by the Governance in Asia Research Centre of CityU and SynergyNet. The forum will take place on 18 December at CityU.

Migration photo exhibition
A photo exhibition titled “La Suisse plurielle – Switzerland and Migration” organised by the Department of Asian and International Studies in coordination with the Swiss Consulate is being held on campus from 1 to 20 December. The exhibition showcases photos and text related to migration, and is part of the programme to celebrate International Migrants Day, which falls on 18 December.

Electronic industrialists to visit CityU
Nine representatives of the Hong Kong Electronic Industries Association will visit CityU on 10 December. Led by Professor Chan Kei-biu, MH, Chairman of the association, the delegation will learn more about the University’s scientific research and exchange views on the development of Hong Kong’s industries. 

Kudos
Professor Zhang Longxi, Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation at City University of Hong Kong and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, has been elected as a member of the Executive Council of the International Comparative Literature Association.

Professor Leung Kwok-wa and Professor Xue Quan of the Department of Electronic Engineering have been elected as Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Professor Leung has been honoured for his outstanding contributions to the development of the dielectric resonator antenna, and Professor Xue for his work in microwave transmission line structures and integrated circuits. There are now 14 IEEE Fellows in the Department of Electronic Engineering.

Professor Chen Guanrong of the Department of Electronic Engineering has been awarded the 2010 Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress in Information Technology by the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation. It is the most influential non-government prize in science and technology in mainland China, and it is awarded to Chinese scientists who have made important inventions, discoveries and achievements in specific subject areas. The foundation was established in 1994 by four well-known Hong Kong philanthropists, namely Mr Ho Sin-hang, Mr Leung Kau-kui, Mr Tim Ho and Mr Lee Guo-wei.

Dr Liu Wenyin of the Department of Computer Science has been selected for the Fellow Award of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) for his contributions to graphics recognition, performance evaluation, document analysis, approaches to anti-phishing, and services to IAPR. IAPR is an international association of non-profit, scientific or professional organisations concerned with pattern recognition, computer vision and image processing in a broad sense.