Kick-off Ceremony for 30th Anniversary
CityU will be marking its 30th anniversary in 2014 with a number of major events designed to celebrate the many achievements that have transformed us into a world-class university. A Kick-off Ceremony will be held on 22 January at Wong Cheung Lo Hui Yuet Hall, 5/F, Academic 3.

New department
CityU has established a new academic unit, the Department of Biomedical Sciences, which went into operation on 2 January 2014.

New appointments
Professor Michael Yang Mengsu has been appointed as Head of the Department of Biomedical Sciences with effect from 2 January 2014. Professor Yang joined the University in 1994 and was a Chair Professor in the Department of Biology and Chemistry before his new appointment.

Dr Hao Gang, Associate Professor in the Department of Management Sciences, has been appointed as Associate Vice-President (Development) in the Development Office with effect from 6 January 2014. Dr Hao received her PhD degree from the University of Pittsburgh and has served the University since 1993. She has considerable experience in a diverse range of administrative roles at the college, departmental and programme levels, and she has extensive networking experience with alumni, industries and businesses. In her new role she will lead the Development Office in fund-raising for the further advancement of the University.

President’s Lecture
Professor P J Ivanhoe, Chair Professor of East Asian and Comparative Philosophy and Religion in the Department of Public Policy and the Director of the Centre for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy, will give the next lecture in the on-going President’s Lecture Series: Excellence in Academia. He will explore the contemporary significance of early Confucian views in ancient China regarding the meaning, power, and significance of music. The title of this talk, which will take place on 21 January, is “The Contemporary Significance of Confucian Views about the Ethical Values of Music”.

Distinguished Lecture
Professor Torbjörn Lodén, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture at Stockholm University and Visiting Professor at CityU, will deliver a City University Distinguished Lecture titled “On the Social Dynamics of Philosophical Ideas: Dai Zhen’s Critique of Neo-Confucianism”. The lecture will take place on 23 January.

Naming ceremony
Lecture Theatre 16 in Academic 1 will be renamed the “Benjamin Kwok Lecture Theatre” after CityU alumnus Mr Benjamin Kwok Chan-yiu in recognition of his generous support to his alma mater. A ceremony will be held on 8 January.

Kudos
Li Yujian, a PhD student in the Department of Electronic Engineering, received the Best Student Paper Award at the National Conference on Antennas 2013 for his paper titled “A 60-GHz Dense Dielectric Patch Antenna Array”. His supervisor is Professor Luk Kwai-man, Chair Professor of Electronic Engineering. The conference was held from 16 to 19 November 2013 in Guangzhou. It provided a platform for extensive exchange of academic, research and the latest technology development among antenna technology scholars, scientists, engineers, technicians and management staff. There were 20 papers selected for the award and Li Yujian was one of five award recipients.

Mo Ka-chun (BBA (Hons) Business Economics, Year 2), Wong Ka-ho (BBA (Hons) Finance, Year 2), Poon Chung-yeung (BBA (Hons) Finance, Year 2) and To Tsz-yan (BBA (Hons), Year 1) won first place, and Mo Ka-chun was named the Best Presenter, in the Hong Kong Undergraduate Financial Planners of the Year Award 2013 organised by the Society of Registered Financial Planners. This year a total of 75 groups from universities in Hong Kong and Macau took part in the competition. The winning CityU students are from the Department of Economics and Finance.

In addition, Mo Ka-chun, Pang Hiu-lam (BBA (Hons) Quantitative Finance and Risk Management, Year 3), Tse Chi-ping (BBA (Hons) Business Economics, Year 2) and Wong Chi-keung (BBA (Hons) Quantitative Finance and Risk Management, Year 3) came in third place in the SCMP/IFPHK Financial Planner Awards 2013—University Student Category. These students are also from the Department of Economics and Finance.

Mr Fan Wing-to, a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Electronic and Communication Engineering graduate in 2013, was named the Second Runner-Up in the 2012–13 Best Final Year Project Competition (Individual) organised by the Energy Institute (Hong Kong Branch). The competition targets final-year engineering students in universities in Hong Kong. The aim is to recognise students’ work which is energy- or fuel-related. The winning project, supervised by Professor Henry Chung Shu-hung of the Department of Electronic Engineering, was called “Digital Controller for Interleaved PFC Operating in Critical Mode—Emerson Network Power HK Ltd”.