Rector’s Speech in Congregation 2018 (26/05/2018)

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The Honourable Chief Executive of the Macao SAR and Chancellor of the University of Macau, Dr Chui Sai On,

The Chair of the University Council, Dr Peter Lam Kam Seng,

The members of the University Assembly and the University Council,

Distinguished guests, dear alumni, parents, teachers and students,

 

Welcome to the 2018 Congregation. Today we are here to witness our graduates setting off for another wonderful journey in life. First of all, on behalf of the university, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations and best wishes to all of the graduates. Our utmost gratitude to parents for their love and care; to our staff for their teaching and shepherding and not least, our thankfulness to all the members of the community for their steadfast support over the years.

 

Today is special not only to you, but also to me, as this is the first time that I am speaking here at the Congregation. In the course of its 37 years, the university has explored and forged a whole-person education model which focuses on discipline-specific education, general education, research and internship education, and community and peer education, and is running an integrated education regime in which faculties and colleges work together to achieve a synergetic effect. The residential college system is even the jewel in the crown of our undergraduate education, so to speak. It is a realization of what the American educationalist John Dewey advocates: education is life and life is education.

 

How time flies! It has been four years since the university moved to the present campus. You were the first batch who were going to start your student life, with hope and aspiration, right here at the first year and today you are, still with your lingering fond memory, the first batch to have passed the whole four amazing years here – yes, siree, here on this verdant campus. For all of its development that took place in those four years, you witnessed it, you participated in it and you came away with the rewarding experience of it.

 

Majoring in different disciplines, you came to your colleges to live, to learn and to join activities in a holistic fashion under its amicable communal ambience. And each one of you will come away with aspirations and your own wonderful story to tell others. We will remember that there in Chao Kuang Piu College, three students realized their start-up dream by co-founding a high-tech entertainment company. The college is greatly supportive of them and provides them space to conduct related experiments. They explored their way of research and invention and shared with their peers their experience in entrepreneurship: Innovation begets the entrepreneurial spirit and the spirit motivation. It takes one to have the passion, the heart, the action to bring the start-up to come to pass. And it has to have a purpose and be positive to society for a start-up to be meaningful.

 

College education does not only coalesce life and education into one inseparable whole, but also wins its admiration from the parents. A case in point is last year when a parent contributed a short newspaper article in the aftermath of the battering Hato. Instead of beefing about class suspension, they lauded their son’s college for mobilizing students to do voluntary restorative work outside the campus. The parent also noted that through the performance of relieve work, students had learned the importance of empathy in times of a disaster. We thank you all, dear parents, for supporting our whole-person education. And dear students, your four-year residential college life will not fade away. It simply deposits itself in you waiting to be a game changer in your future life. That’s the very reason why we have the residential college system.

 

At the commencement of a new journey, you will have new dreams to dream, new goals to achieve. Take the university motto with you. Dream big and aim high. Venture and be receptive to new ideas. For Macao. For our nation and beyond. You will find a fast-changing world out there. Stay there a second more and you will lag behind. The only key to success is to keep learning and thinking. As what Steve Jobs said at the 2005 Stanford University Commencement: “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”. I wish everyone of you can live an awesome life through constant learning and power on. The university is your pride, and you will be the university’s pride as well!

 

Once again, my heartiest congratulations to all of the graduates. Wish you a bright and promising future. And all the best to our dearest guests, alumni, parents, teachers and students.

 

Thank you!

Rector’s Inauguration Speech (24/01/2018)

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The Honourable Chair of the University Council, Dr Peter Lam Kam Seng;

The Honourable Members of the University Assembly and the University Council;

Dear guests, colleagues and students:

 

Good afternoon and thank you very much for attending my inauguration today. I would first like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Selection Committee for their support, to the University Council for their recommendation and to the Chief Executive for my appointment as the ninth Rector of the University of Macau. I am very much honoured to have the opportunity to serve the University and the local community. Today, on this solemn occasion, I am taking up this glorious mission; with it also comes my strong sense of responsibility.

 

In recent years, the University of Macau has achieved high standards with distinctive regional features. All of these are attributed to the joint efforts and support of the Central and the MSAR Governments, Members of the University Assembly and the University Council, as well as the local community. Also we must give credit to the former rectors for their leadership and university staff for their contributions.

 

Now on the back of its history of 37 years, the University is setting full sail ahead. In planning the development of the University, we should draw experience from the past, keeping in mind what our predecessors have offered us and treasuring the achievements we have. Through torch-relay, we will constantly take steps forward and strive for perfection and innovation. I will listen to the views of different parties in and out of the University, build communication pathways for staff, foster mutual trust and pool ideas together to work out how to move the University forward. We will formulate strategies to pursue excellence, to refine our education and to make the University impactful internationally. I would like to make use of this occasion to share with you my initial ideas on four aspects of University development:

 

First, we will refine our integrated education model to nurture talents at different levels and for various fields.

As the Chinese saying goes: Well governance hinges on talents, talent nurturing on education, and education on schools. That is to say, education institutions are what we need to cultivate talents. As students are the future of Macao and China, it is important therefore that we go about talent nurturing at different levels and for various fields. Towards that end, it is our mission to develop the University into a world-class tertiary institution to pitch in with the MSAR Government policy of ‘building a better Macao through education’.

 

The fundamental pursuit of a world-class university is to provide quality education to undergraduates. We will therefore optimize our whole-person education system that consists of general education, discipline-specific education, research and internship, and peer and community education. We will also make the most of the combined strengths of, and forge closer collaboration among Honours College, residential colleges and faculties; and actively launch the innovation and entrepreneurship education. Besides, we will provide students with more exchange and study opportunities in renowned higher institutions in mainland or overseas; stimulate students’ learning motivation; and nurture students to be the talents with patriotism, aspiration, a global vision, innovative spirits, and a strong sense of commitment to society and to themselves.

 

The standards of a university are also judged by the quality of postgraduate education it offers. For this reason, we will take a raft of measures to raise the standards of our postgraduate programmes. These will mainly include: admitting high-calibre PhD candidates and building a stronger team of teaching staff; cultivating academic spirits and creativity in postgraduates; seeking to build an international research cooperation platform; and providing postgraduates with more opportunities to participate in cutting-edge scientific and interdisciplinary research. A world-class university calls for an excellent academic environment. We will work hard to nurture our postgraduate talents to be globally competitive and able to bring progress to humanity and solve challenging scientific issues.

 

Second, we will strive to create a working environment that can unleash staff’s individual potential and bring out the best in them.

The greatness of a university lies in the strong scholarship of its faculty. Having a team of good teachers is a prerequisite for having good students. To develop into a world-class university, it is imperative for us to build a dynamic team of professional teaching staff with academic integrity and international standing. We will strive to foster a culture where each and every one of the members of staff feels happy to work under, where they will work towards the same goal in solidarity and where they will give their best with their efforts recognized and appreciated. Such a working environment can strengthen staff members’ sense of belonging to the University. It is only by doing so will each one of them be able to maximize their strengths and do their job well.

 

We will also perfect the evaluation mechanism for different categories of academic staff with reference to, where it can practically apply, the relevant criteria of world-renowned universities; improve the efficiency of administrative service and use of resources; recruit more distinguished scholars and other talents; and create favourable working conditions for academic staff to be able to unleash their full potential and produce cutting-edge research output with the objective of building a strong faculty that has excellent academic reputation.

 

Third, we will build a mechanism to further open up our cooperation with other institutions on research in order to increase the impactfulness and innovativeness of research output.

A world-class university ought to and should be able to constantly explore the unknown, which is key to making it influential and prestigious. Alongside the efforts to strengthen the overall academic standards of the University, we will focus on our priorities and enhance research quality, so that we can carve out niches in research on arts and humanities, social sciences and science and technology. A mechanism to further open up research collaboration will also be established to facilitate interdisciplinary cooperation within the University and deepen the connections with mainland universities, research institutes and enterprises. The strengthening of international research collaborations will also be emphasized. Other manoeuvres will also include reforming the current research management mechanism to ensure smooth running of research-related activities, integrating teaching and research to produce synergetic effects, increasing the ability of our research to address the problems faced by humanity and achieving international leverage and prestige in relevant fields.

 

Fourth, we will continue to perfect the community service platform so that the intention of serving society can get realized across as broad the spectrums of Macao’s socio-economic development as possible.

The strength of a world-class university is also testified to by the service it provides to the community. The more a university has developed, the greater responsibility it will have towards society and the greater role it is expected to play in socio-economic development of the community which it belongs to. As the only public comprehensive university in the MSAR, the University of Macau should not only root itself in Macao, but also be prepared to go beyond the ivory tower of academia to serve society. It should strengthen its function as a think tank to assist and support the MSAR Government to adopt a scientific approach to its governance and for its positioning in the One Centre and One Platform initiative. Further, the University will continue to promote the integration of academia, research and industry to make more technological transfers possible. It will also work hard to contribute in such areas as building Macao into a smart city, refining its health care and basic education systems, etc. In doing so, the University will be able to play a more significant role of serving the socio-economic development of Macao.

 

A new chapter. A new journey. A new starting point. A new mission. This is the job that is going to give me a critical sense of responsibility, and I will work hard to do it well. Just like we must have dreams before we can go for greater successes, a university must have its own aspirations before it can achieve excellence. The University of Macau should assume on itself the mission of serving our community, contributing to our Nation and doing good for humanity. For it to do that, the University must root itself in Macao, integrate itself into the Greater Bay Region and relate itself vis-à-vis our Nation and beyond. We will continue to steer the University towards its educational mission and uphold its ideals, in the light of what is prescribed in the university motto — humanity, integrity, propriety, wisdom and sincerity. Under the support of the community and through the concerted efforts of all the students and teachers, we will strive to transform the University of Macau into an institution of excellence: The one which local people feel proud of, which outstanding students want to study in, and which the top scholars want to work for.

 

Thank you once again for being present here today. I wish you good health, good luck and every success.

 

Thank you.

 

Songhua Song
Rector of the University of Macau

A Message for the University Community (09/01/2018)

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Dear colleagues, students and alumni,

Today is my first day of being the rector of the University of Macau. At the turn of the year, I would like to send all of you my best wishes. May the year of 2018 bring you good health and every success!

It is my greatest honour to be appointed the ninth rector of the university by the Chief Executive on recommendation by the University Council. In the past months, I had the opportunity of meeting some of the council members, staff and students. You were so welcoming and I thank you for sharing with me your studying and working experiences as well as your campus life. I am deeply touched by all those great efforts that you have put in making this university into the one as we know it today: be it about its state-of-the-art facilities, or its verdant campus that is richly steeped with academic ambience.

Without a doubt, the university has come a long way over the years with increasing academic influence and kudos internationally. This would not have been possible without the full support of the central and the Macao SAR governments and the outstanding leadership of the current and previous chancellors, council members and rectors. Last but not least, we are grateful for the unreserved support of the community and the contributions of university staff.

This is a new chapter, a new mission. I will hit the ground running and look forward to meeting many more of you in the coming months in different ways possible: formally or not so formally. I will also listen to the local community and see what they expect of us. With the solid foundation laid for the university, we will continue to do our job well through collective efforts and we look forward to more innovation, new opportunities and greater accomplishments in the future development of the university.

Yours sincerely,

Songhua Song
Rector of the University of Macau