Prof. Joseph Sung (沈祖堯教授), Head of Shaw College and Associate Dean (General Affairs) of Faculty of Medicine of CUHK, was invited as the guest speaker of the Heart to Heart Talk on 3 December 2008. Business students, alumni and friends of CUBA came to listen to the talk. The topic of the talk was “Leadership in critical times”. Prof. Sung imparted sage advice from his own experience in demonstrating leadership in critical situations and gave suggestions to students on how to equip themselves for the challenges in the new era.

From left: Daniel Lam (Quantitative Finance Year 3); Mr Dick Lee; Alan Chan (Integrated BBA Year 2)

A group of six Global Business Studies Year-3 students — Ruby Chik, Margaret Fung, Candy Lam, Cheryl Lau, Spencer Liu and Justin Yeung — won the Championship in the Joint University Business Management Challenge 2008. This case competition was a real-case management challenge aimed to enhance the participants’ understanding of the real business world and to promote team spirit. Six out of 122 teams were selected to go to the final round. The finalists were requested to make their analysis and suggestions in front of a panel of judges. Giving an outstanding performance, the Global Business Studies team beat other teams and won the Business Management Challenge. Team member Ruby Chik also won the "Best Presenter" award.

Another CUBA team comprised of Yung Chi Kwong Kevin (Integrated BBA Year 3), Ng Ho Yin Daydrew (Integrated BBA Year 3), Lam Sin Man Sunny (Integrated BBA Year 3), Chow Kam Fai Keith (Professional Accountancy Year 3) and Lau Yu Wa Jenny (Professional Accountancy Year 4) won 2^nd-runner-up.

A group of four business students — team leader Yip Ho Long Ronald (Quantitative Finance Year 1), Chan Kin On (Professional Accountancy Year 1), Ho Yan Yue Nicholas (Quantitative Finance Year 1) and Keung Pit Kai Henry (Global Business Studies Year 1) — won 1st-runner-up in the HKICPA QP Case Analysis Competition this year, held on 22 November 2008. Although the four CUBA students have only studied business for one semester, they managed to outperform other senior-year students in more than 150 teams coming from CUHK and other institutions. Our heartiest congratulations!

Winning team leader Ronald shares about the victory:

The results we have experienced were simply unimaginable. We have definitely gone much further than we thought we could. And this experience is wonderful not just because of the final triumph but because we have progressed from being complete "newbies" to experienced competitors.

We entered the competition aiming to get a sense of the business world, while knowing the limits constraining us. Though we did not expect to place, we tried to do our best. Through persistent exploration and discussions, we have gained new knowledge from things like writing an executive summary to presenting a full proposal. All of these were more than challenging for a team of freshmen.

Pulling together all the threads we collected from the massive web of the Internet was already demanding, but putting forward a complete proposal with an analysis, solutions and financial projections was even more arduous. We supplemented our lack of initial direction with perseverance, and our lack of know-how with creativity. We were overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of success when we finally finished the written report.

When we were informed that we made it to the final round, we were dumbstruck. We didn’t quite know what to do next. We later reached the conclusion that as long as we exercised our critical thinking and provided a presentation as comprehensive as possible, we would be alright. For technical details, we sought advice from finance professor Dennis Fan and other senior students, all of whom provided great guidance and support, and for that we must thank them. Our sincere gratitude also goes to Professor Gordon Cheung, Programme Director of Global Business Studies, whom we frequently consulted. Our final product turned out to be the brainchild of much thoughts and rectification.

The final results were proof that perseverance paid off and that every competitor has an equal chance as long as they challenge themselves. We once again thank all who helped us. And we sincerely wish on our fellow schoolmates even better achievements.

The Centre for Learning Enhancement and Research (CLEAR) organized a Workshop on “Evaluating Your Teaching” which addressed the details of the course and teaching evaluation (CTE) at CUHK and suggested some possible ways of gathering useful and timely feedback for the purpose of improvement of teaching performance, particularly among the newly-recruited teaching staff at the University. On behalf of the Undergraduate Office, Professor Andrew C.F. Chan, Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies), and Mr Chan Chi-ho, Secretary of the Committee on Teaching and Learning Quality, attended this workshop in order to gain some insights in terms of reviewing the existing CTE Questionnaire, thus achieving curriculum alignment and Outcomes-based Approach (OBA) to teaching and learning within the BA Faculty.

Professor Andrew C.F. Chan, Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies), Ms Melina Iu, Administrative Director (Undergraduate Programmes), and Mr Chan Chi-ho, Secretary of the Task Force on 334 Curriculum Development, attended the 3+3+4 Symposium on "Partnering for Excellence in Education" as hosted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education at its Tai Po Campus. Professor Lawrence J Lau, JP, Vice-Chancellor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Convenor of the Heads of Universities Committee (HUCOM), also delivered an opening speech during the Opening Ceremony and joined the Signing Ceremony of the Joint Declaration of Partnering for Excellence in Education under "334".

This Symposium was the very first one among the series of the twelve 3+3+4 symposia to be organized by HUCOM with funding support from the University Grants Committee (UGC), with the aim of providing an ideal platform for sharing and exchanging views over the planning and implementation of the "334" among the UGC-funded institutions and stakeholders including the UGC, the Government, the secondary school sectors and key schools sponsoring bodies. The eight UGC-funded institutions will take turns hosting this series of symposia from late 2008 to 2011, covering topics on interface issues, admission issues, curriculum development, outcome-based learning, double cohort issues, general education, assessment issues, language issues, first year undergraduate experience, knowledge transfer, and administrative systems, etc. Interested parties may visit the Symposium website at http://www.ied.edu.hk/334symposia/ where you can find the programme rundown, abstracts of the keynote speeches and highlights of the parallel sessions as well as the relevant presentation materials. The next 3+3+4 Symposium has been scheduled for Saturday, 25 April 2009 which will be hosted by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Prof. Lawrence J Lau, JP, Vice-Chancellor, CUHK and Convenor of the Heads of Universities Committee (HUCOM) delivered an opening speech.

Joining hands together – (from left) Representatives of the 8 UGC-funded institutions, including Prof. Anthony Cheung, President of HKIEd (the 3rd), Prof. Ching-fai Ng, GBS, President and Vice-Chancellor, HKBU (the 5th), Prof. Richard Ho, Provost, CityU (the 6th), Prof. Lawrence J Lau, JP, Vice-Chancellor, CUHK (the 7th), the Hon. Mrs Laura M. Cha, SBS, JP, Chairman, University Grants Committee (the 8th), the Hon. Mr Michael M Y Suen, GBS, JP, Secretary for Education (the 9th), Mr Irving Koo, SBS, JP, Chairman, Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (the 10th), and representatives of Secondary School Councils and Prof Wing-on Lee, Vice-President (Academic), HKIEd (the 18th).

Prof. Andrew C.F. Chan

To prepare for the development of the new 4-year curriculum, the Workshop on the Preparation for "3+3+4" Curriculum and Outcomes-based Approach was held on 10 December 2008 where academics and teaching staff from various faculties, programmes and academic/administrative units had fruitful discussions over the various issues and challenges arising from the new curriculum design.  Faculty members including Prof. TJ Wong (Dean), Prof. Andrew C.F. Chan (Associate Dean - Undergraduate Studies), Prof. YF Chow (Quantitative Finance Programme), Prof. Eliza Tse (Hotel and Tourism Management Programme), Prof. Albert Wong (Insurance, Financial and Actuarial Analysis Programme), Dr Alice Chui (Professional Accountancy Programme), Miss Melina Iu (UGO), Ms Anthea Cheng (BA Faculty Office) and Mr Chan Chi-ho (Secretary, Task Force on 334 Curriculum Development) attended respective presentation / group discussion sessions of the Workshop.  Also, Prof. Shige Makino, Chairperson of the Department of Management, on behalf of the Faculty of Business Administration delivered a short presentation on "Participant-centered learning in business education" in the afternoon session of the Workshop. 

It was reiterated at the Workshop that since the 4-year curriculum development, the implementation of the Outcomes-based Approach (OBA) to teaching and learning as well as the smooth and successful integration of both would be of paramount importance to all programmes, faculties and the University in the coming academic years, concerted effort not only at the programme and faculty levels but also at the individual level (including both academic / teaching and administrative staff) would be much expected, in the hope that close alignment with the University’s future development could be achieved.

To cater to the 334 academic structure, the Faculty of Business Administration has set up the Task Force on 334 Curriculum Development since early 2008. Several meetings have been held so far to deliberate issues such as the entrance requirements of different BA undergraduate programmes in 2012, the design of the Faculty Package, the inclusion of research / internship opportunities, the possibility of formalizing student experiential activities, and so on. In a recent meeting held on 22 December 2008, the Task Force had a detailed discussion on the design of the new 4-year curriculum of respective programmes and of the Faculty Package. While there will be ongoing consultations with the stakeholders both within and outside the Faculty (e.g. the University’s Sub-group on Four-year Curriculum Design and the Centre for Learning Enhancement and Research) in the coming years, the Faculty Package and the curriculum of respective programmes to be drafted with reference to the idea of Outcomes-based Approach (OBA) are expected to be ready for submission to the University for further advice by the end of February 2009. Updates on the development of the new 4-year curriculum within the BA Faculty will be done here from time to time if any substantial and significant progress is made.

Prof. Richard K. Lyons, Bank of America Dean, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley visited Hong Kong in early December 2008. Prof. Lyons met Prof. Andrew C.F. Chan, Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies), Faculty of Business Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, during his visit. They exchanged ideas on business education in US and in Hong Kong, and explored possibility on collaboration in the future.

Mr Chan Ho Fung, Professional Consultant of the Department of Marketing, represented the Faculty of Business Administration to deliver an admission talk during the Macau Information Seminar. The talk was very well received and attracted a number of questions from the participants. Ms Brenda Ieng Ka Man, Integrated BBA Year 2 student, was also invited to share her study life and experiences on and off campus as a business student to the audience.

2nd right: Mr Chan Ho Fung, Professional Consultant, Department of Marketing