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AD
Final Report deferred
In the eleventh hour, the
Council's Working Group on Associate Degree Programmes, chaired by Mr
S M Chung, Treasurer, decided to withhold submission of its Final
Report to the Council on 24 November.
One business day before the
Council meeting, Mr Chung explained, the Working Group received a letter
from the College divisional representatives in which they raised a legal
issue over employment with the University under superannuable terms. Under
a recommendation in the Final Report, in June 2008 staff was to switch
to employment under fixed term contracts to be signed with a new company
under the Council. Staff has since been advised that those on a superannuation
contract are protected under the "legitimate expectations" principle
and that they could expect an ex-gratia compensation payment if their
superannuable employment with the University ends. Mr Chung said the Working
Group must seek legal advice before finding an appropriate way forward.
At this stage, the Working Group is keeping all options open.
Mr Chung believes that further
delays jeopardize the setting up of a new College and draw the University
away from the pressing issues it has to face in the coming months. "It
is frustrating for the whole University community," he said, "if we
have to start over again."
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| Funding
allocations 2004-05
The University Grants Committee has verbally notified CityU that for 2004-05
it will be allocated a recurrent grant of HK$1,884.5 million, 14.4% reduction
from 2003-04 figures, inclusive of withdrawal of funding for affected
associate degree and taught postgraduate programmes. The sector-wide nominal
cut is 13.4%. The University is awaiting written notification from UGC.
Figures for the 2005-08 triennium are expected to be announced in April
2004.
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| Governance
issues
The Council, on 24 November, approved a set of recommendations on University
governance. The main thrust of the proposals lies in enhancing the Council's
role in setting the University strategy, yielding delegation of management
matters to the President, and monitoring the management and operation
of the University through agreed key performance indicators. Among the
20 recommendations:
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Decrease Council membership
to 20 from 33, by reducing the number of internal members from 15
to five (President, Deputy President, two staff representatives and
one student representative)
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Impanel an ad-hoc Nominations
Committee to recommend individuals for Council membership
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Establish a University
Development Committee to take the place of the Estates Development
Committee and Finance Committee
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Establish an audit committee,
with membership exclusively drawn from lay Council members
- Set up an External Relations
Committee to replace the Donations Committee
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| Salary
cut
The 3%-plus-3% across-the-board
salary cut for 1 January 2004 and 2005 respectively, in line with Civil
Service practice, was approved by the Council. All regular full-time and
temporary, term and part-time staff will be affected, except those who
are appointed before 1 July 2003 and whose salary is either fixed or not
strictly pegged to the University's salary scales. Research staff, whose
salaries have been revised with a 20% cut effective 1 July 2003, will
not be affected either. The Human Resources Office will seek staff consent
in the next few weeks.
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| 20th
anniversary
Four working groups have been
impanelled under the 20th Anniversary steering committee, to focus on:
academic activities; sports/cultural/social service/promotional activities;
publications and publicity; logistics and support. These groups are chaired
by, respectively, Prof Joseph Lai (AP), Prof
Matthew Chen, D(FHS), Prof C C Lee (EN) and
Mr K Y Wong, D(FMO).
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Search
for librarian
On November 25, a shortlist of three external candidates was whittled
down to two. An appointment is expected soon.
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| Council
member
Mr Mak Hoi-wah,
SS, has been re-elected staff representative to the Council, with a term
of office from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2006.
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| Kudos
Prof Y C Chan (EE),
Director of Centre for Electronic Packaging and Assemblies, Failure Analysis
and Reliability Engineering, has been elected Fellow of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Prof Chan is the ninth
FIEEE at CityU. He has been nominated for his contributions to electronic
product reliability, an area of endeavour exclusive to CityU.
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More
Kudos
A CityU team of eight undergraduates, representing the disciplines of
accounting, economics and finance, creative media, information systems,
electronic engineering and materials science, won the first prize in the
YDC E-Challenge 2003 organized in June by the Young Entrepreneurs Development
Council. The winning team, comprising two exchange students from Tsinghua
University, was selected from more than 80 teams from local universities.
The winning project "GUARDIN Access Control System" is biomedical
recognition technology built on the walking habits and characteristics
of individuals.
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Lectures
The second of the Famous Scholars/Writers
Lecture Series, "Sun Tsu's Art of War and Management", organized
by the Run Run Shaw Library and the Department of Management, will take
place Thursday, 4 December, 4:30-5:30pm, at the Library's Reading/Seminar
Room. Renowned writer and newspaper columnist Mr Shum Yat-fei
will speak.
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