The School of Humanities and Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) will enhance its scope of international collaboration by forming functional ties with University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Virginia, and six top universities in Beijing.
The School will also revamp its undergraduate curriculum and include new subjects such as music appreciation, and a major program in Global China Studies. Teaching and research in Energy and Environment will be introduced, and the Advisory Committee will be expanded.
This was outlined by Prof James Z Lee, new Dean of Humanities and Social Science.
HKUST-UCLA Collaboration
The HKUST-UCLA program will provide six joint faculty projects, each lasting three years. For each project, an international workshop will be held at UCLA and a summary public conference will be held at HKUST. Meanwhile, there will be several graduate student exchanges for up to a year each.
The first two such projects to be introduced are respectively on education in China, and on new archival materials for the study of post-1949 Chinese political economy and society. The projects are expected to become exemplars of how to build China Studies collaborations between institutions in China and the US.
Beijing Institutional Collaborations
In Beijing, HKUST will collaborate with six top institutions of learning, namely Peking University, Tsinghua University, Peking Normal University, Renmin University, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and the Academy of Social Sciences.
Peking University has already supplied office space for HKUST as a base to facilitate coordination with the six institutional partners and for other academic purposes such as teaching, meetings and interviews.
University of Virginia Participation
The University of Virginia will participate in the Beijing-based activities, including a three-way student exchange program in Humanities and Social Sciences, jointly organized by HKUST, Peking University and the University of Virginia.
Music Education at HKUST
A new program – in music education – is being planned under the direction of Bright Sheng, one of the foremost contemporary composers whose stage, orchestral, chamber and vocal works are performed regularly throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Under this program, several composers and performs will visit HKUST to organize a workshop each spring on composition and performance and teach a series of music appreciation classes. The goal is to create by 2012 a program that can introduce to every HKUST undergraduate at least one semester of fine arts before graduation.
Revamp of Undergraduate Curriculum
To meet the requirements of the 3-3-4 Education Reform, the entire undergraduate curriculum will be revamped by 2012. A curriculum committee is being formed by recruiting faculty members who have won teaching awards.
In the meantime, a new undergraduate major program called “BSc in Global China Studies: Humanities and Social Science” will be introduced in 2011.
Meanwhile, a “service curriculum” will be launched to foster social consciousness and social engagement among students – both with Hong Kong and with China. This will be worked out in coordination with the other schools – Science, Engineering, and Business and Management – within HKUST.
Teaching and Research in Energy and Environment Policy
The School of Humanities and Social Science is working with the School of Science and School of Business and Management to introduce a new inter-disciplinary program in Energy and Environment Policy.
Meanwhile, a Center for China Environment and Energy Policy is being planned at HKUST. It aims to provide a forum for systemic analysis and inter-disciplinary discussion of China’s major environmental and energy issues to support a more sustainable and low-carbon development path for China and other emerging economies.
The research projects under the Center for China Environment and Energy Policy will focus on five key themes: 1) Climate change governance and mitigation policy; 2) Environmental governance and domestic environmental policy; 3) Environment and health; 4) Energy policy, energy economics, and technology development; and 5) Sustainable transportation.
Advisory Committee – Closer Linkage with Other Universities
To share information on undergraduate and graduate teaching and research initiatives, the School of Humanities and Social Science has sought the agreement of our peers from other universities to join our Advisory Committee. These academic leaders include:
Prof Ian Holliday, Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong;
Prof Ping-chen Hsiung, Dean of Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong;
Prof Hsin-kang Chang, past President of City University of Hong Kong and former Dean of Engineering at HKUST; and
Prof Meredith Woo, Dean of the College and Graduate School in Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia.
About Prof James Z Lee
Prof Lee is an eminent scholar in humanities and social science. His research covers a wide range of disciplines, including Chinese history, Chinese society and economy, comparative demography, sociology of populations, as well as historical sociology, genealogy and health.
Prior to joining HKUST, Professor Lee was Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Michigan, Research Professor at the Population Studies Center, and Faculty Associate at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. He was also Director of the University of Michigan-Peking University Joint Institute, and Director of the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies. From 1982 to 2003, he was a faculty member in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the California Institute of Technology.
About the HKUST School of Humanities and Social Science
HKUST’s School of Humanities and Social Science was formed in 1992 – one year after the University’s inauguration. Today, the School has 52 faculty members in twelve disciplines:
Humanities – Anthropology, Arts, History, Linguistics, Literature, and Philosophy
Social Science – Economics, Geography, Political Science, Psychology, Science Studies, and Sociology.
Rankings
The 2009 Times-QS ranking, which is highly influenced by peer review, placed HKUST’s School of Humanities and Social Science 16th in Asia.
The 2008 Shanghai Jiaotong University Academic Ranking of World Universities, which is based more on research performance and academic achievement, ranks HKUST’s Division of Social Science 1st in Greater China.
The last University Grants Committee (UGC) Research Assessment Exercise, in 2006, ranks HKUST first in Hong Kong in Social Science and second in Hong Kong in Humanities.
HKUST has the largest interdisciplinary social science program of Chinese Studies anywhere outside Mainland China, and one of the strongest programs in Chinese Linguistics and Chinese Philosophy in the region.
For media enquiries, please feel free to contact :
Ross Lai
Tel: 2358 6306 / 9103 2928
Email: rosslai@ust.hk
Donna Wong
Tel: 2358 6317
Email: donnaw@ust.hk
