Master
Professor Wai-Yee Chan, Professor of Biomedical Sciences and founding Director of School of Biomedical Sciences, was appointed Master of CW Chu College, with effect from 1 January 2017.
Professor Chan obtained his bachelor’s degree from CUHK and his PhD from the University of Florida. Chan joined CUHK in 2009, and has held many offices at the University, as Deputy Chair of the Research Committee (2013–2018), as a member of the CUHK Alumni Torch Fund Executive Committee (2014–2017), among others, and in the Faculty of Medicine as a member in various committees. During his undergraduate years, he was a student of United College and held office in the Representative Council of CUHK.
Professor Chan has been actively engaged in serving the scientific community of Hong Kong and China in various capacities. (Details)
Professor Chan regarded his appointment as Master of CW Chu College as his distinct honour. He appreciated the chance to carry on the torch, to contribute his effort in implementing the College motto ‘Cultus et Beneficentia’ (cultivating oneself and benefitting the community) and to perpetuate the spirit of Dr Chu Ching-wen in making the opportunity to be educated available to deserving ones. Professor Chan committed, ‘I will try my very best to take the College to new heights based on the solid foundation already laid down.’
Introduction
As a new member of the University community, CW Chu College distinguishes itself among other colleges at the Chinese University in a number of ways. It is a small college with about three hundred students, and is one of the only three Colleges of the University that are fully residential, with all students required to live in during four years of their undergraduate studies. Communal dining in the College is also an expectation. These features hark back to the long and cherished tradition of collegiate institutions in the West, Oxford and Cambridge being the best-known examples. By substantially strengthening the interaction between teachers and students, raising the students’ interest in intellectual dialogue, enhancing their scope and depth of general knowledge, broadening their perspective on the world at large, enhancing in them a capacity for ethical reflection and conduct, and furnishing them with the interpersonal skills that will stand them in good stead in life after graduation, CW Chu College aims to nurture graduates who embody the values which the late Dr CW Chu exemplified, and which are encapsulated in the College motto Cultus et Beneficentia : leadership, service, intellectual clarity and ethical conduct.
A close and vibrant community has already been built with the cohorts of students. The College looks forward to welcoming local and non-local students , as well as incoming exchange students from around the world.
Origin
CW Chu College is one of the colleges established by The Chinese University of Hong Kong to support the University’s expansion upon the reversion to a four-year undergraduate curriculum in 2012. The College is named after Dr Chu Ching-wen (1906–1996), a prominent industrialist and a remarkable philanthropist who spent the larger part of his career in Hong Kong. The University decided to perpetuate the memory of Dr Chu by naming one of the new colleges after him.
Dr CW Chu
Dr Chu Ching-wen, in whose honour this College at The Chinese University of Hong Kong is named, was born in Jiangsu in 1906. He died in Hong Kong in 1996, and his philanthropic work has since been continued through the CW Chu Foundation chaired by Dr Chu’s eldest son, Dr David Chu.
Amidst the many charitable endeavours he undertook during his lifetime, Dr CW Chu is most cherished for his extensive work in support of higher education for young people, first in Hong Kong and then in mainland China. During the 1960s to the 1980s, Dr Chu provided scholarships that enabled more than 700 young people from Hong Kong to pursue higher education in the United States. From the late 1980s onwards, Dr Chu transferred his aid scheme to the Mainland where, through the CW Chu Foundation, support has been provided to university students, especially in Jiangsu and Anhui. To this day over 30,000 mainland university students have benefited from the munificence of the Foundation.
Quite unlike other philanthropists who also focus their attention on education, Dr CW Chu is remembered and venerated nowadays not only for the substantial funds he provided to support young people, but also for his personal interest and involvement in their studies, their progress and their development, fulfilling a venerated paternal role in loco parentis.