New appointment
Professor Yan Houmin, currently Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Management Sciences, will take up the post of Dean of the College of Business from 1 January 2013.

Professor Yan is a distinguished scholar in the areas of stochastic models, supply chain management, contract design and evaluation and behavior models. As Dean, he plans to provide academic leadership and foster a collegial ambiance to help faculty/staff and students pursue and develop academic excellence. 

Distinguished lectures
Professor Philippe G Ciarlet, University Distinguished Professor, will deliver a lecture in the President's Lecture Series: Excellence in Academia on 7 December. His talk is titled "Geometry and Elasticity". Professor Ciarlet is an Officier in the French Order of the Légion d'Honneur and a member of eight national or international academies.

Professor H T Kung, William H. Gates Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Harvard University, will deliver a City University Distinguished Lecture titled "Big Data and Compressive Sensing". The talk will describe a new approach based on recent theory concerning compressive sensing to address the issue of processing, transporting and storing large data sets of enormous sizes gathered from high-resolution sensors and the Internet. The lecture will take place on 6 December.

Naming ceremony
In recognition of the contributions to CityU made by alumnus Dr Raymond Leung Siu-hong, Lecture Theatre 14 will be named after Dr Leung's wife as "Leung Ko Yuk Tak Lecture Theatre". A naming ceremony to be officiated by Dr and Mrs Leung and Professor Way Kuo, University President, will be held on 22 December.

Kudos
A work titled "I am thinking in a room, different from the one you are hearing in now" by Mr Samson Young Kar-fai, Assistant Professor in the School of Creative Media, was awarded an honorary mention in the digital music and sound art category at Prix Ars Electronica. His work has been reported in Sotheby's magazine, BBC News, Creator's Project and Yishushijie. Earlier this year, the same piece received a Jury Selection Award in the art category of the 15th Japan Media Art Festival, and it was shown at the National Art Center in Tokyo.

Mr Mok Ho-leung, a 2012 graduate of the BSc (Hons) Computer Science, won the Merit Prize for his project titled "Mobile Live Broadcasting Application" in the HKEIA Innovation & Technology Project Competition Award 2012. Mr Mok also won the Gold Award in the 2012 Amway Pan-Pearl River Delta Region Universities IT Project Competition. His project has also been nominated by the Hong Kong Computer Society (HKCS) to compete for the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards.  

Jackie Khor Yhuen-zhuen, a Year 3 student in the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, won 2nd prize at the Inter-University German Speech competition. Pan Law Yu-hei, a Year 3 student in the Department of Management Sciences, and Celeste Flanagan Yau Lok-fui, a Year 3 student in the Department of Management, were the finalists.

Three animation works by 2012 graduates of the Bachelor of Arts (Hon) in Creative Media at the School of Creative Media were shortlisted for the Acute Angle 2012-13: Pearl Delta Independent Animation Screening organised by CULTaMAP, a local culture and art magazine. Kouezhan created by Judy Tong Yee-tak was named Best Animation. The other two animations were 1st February by Wong Wing-shan and Blue Moon by Mill Lau Miu-ha.

A CityU team of distance runners won the women's annual cross-country race in the University Sports Federation of Hong Kong, China, competition. The men's team came second in their event, making CityU the second place institution overall.