How president of HKU is selected

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(People's Daily Online) 08:20, August 08, 2013

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Hong Kong University is going to select a new president!

Selecting a new president has become an urgent mission, as current president Lap-chee Tsui is going to leave his post by the end of February 2014. Different from the president appointment system in Chinese mainland, universities in Hong Kong adopt president employment system. What are requirements for becoming the president of HKU? How is the process of selecting a new president like? Can students and alumni participate in the selection?

The position of President of HKU is open to the whole world with five strict requirements, accompanied with substantial salaries. The five strict requirements are categorized by remarkable academic achievement and leadership, honesty and integrity, global horizon, administrative ability and effective communication skills. "Although the requirements are broad, HKU will stick to the requirements during the selecting process," said the spokesman of HKU.

"Hong Kong has limited scholars, it's hard to find a president of a university, who is expected to reach great achievements both on academy and administration. Therefore, looking for a scholar abroad seems plausible,"said Ding Wei, professor of political science and international relations, Hong Kong Baptist University.

For instance, Lap-chee Tsui was professor of the university of Toronto, geneticist-in-chief and head of the Genetics and Genomic Biology Program of the research institute before taking the position of president of HKU. Chen Fanchang, president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, used to work at University of California, Los Angeles and the National Science Foundation.

How can Hong Kong attract such outstanding scholars?

According to Ding Wei, besides fantastic academic atmosphere, universities in Hong Kong also pay abundant of salaries to appeal famous talents.

The salary for president of Hong Kong University reaches 4 million HK dollars a year. The salary for other presidents of Hong Kong universities mounts up to millions of HK dollars as well.

In addition, presidents could be distributed a luxurious car and house. It's not controversial that universities in Hong Kong make considerable payment in order to attract more famous scholars and talents.

In the process of selection of presidents for universities in Hong Kong, the government has nothing to do with the selection. In this way, the university itself makes approaches to select presidents, with the help of staffing agencies.

The Hong Kong authority has claimed that universities in Hong Kong could pick presidents in their own way.

It usually takes three steps to select presidents for universities in Hong Kong. They establish temporary work team to collect public opinions at first, and then review committee and selection committee are set up to seek for proper candidates.

Also, HKU hires staffing agencies to assist with the selection process. The spokesman of HKU suggests that the review committee has received more than 30 recommendation letters so far while staffing agencies have received the same numbers of recommendation letters. The committee will gradually continue to review and interview candidates.

The novelty of selecting president of HKU is that students and alumni can get involved directly in the process, accounting for 18 percent in choice making.

Currently, universities of Hong Kong take student's opinions into consideration in a great degree. In 2006, City University of Hong Kong chose president without student representatives involved, which dissatisfied its students. The new president was not selected until two years later due to the students' objection to the selecting process.

Ding Wei suggests that students' involvement in the selection has changed the traditional process of choice making system. However, this transparent process also leads to president's focus on balance of teaching and learning, viewing problems from students' perspectives. But it's essential for students to stay rational and prudent to the selecting process, not according to individual preferences.