Bulletin Winter 1999

other courses provided through your extramural department, even while your research enterprises and your international links grow ever stronger. From St. Andrews my father went to Oxford, where he finished his undergraduate studies. Here he learned about another kind of community, and learned to treasure the model of a university which he never forgot - the university which values academic distinction, success in research, to the highest possible level; but which at the same time is determined to create and sustain a community of scholars and students who work, live and relax together, and see themselves as engaged in a common enterprise of learning. For John Fulton, the campus university with resident students and staff was the true ideal of such an institution — a solid foundation from which to reach out and serve the external world to which 1 have just referred. This John Fulton Centre in whic h we stand today is, if you like, a symbol of that belief: that the university is not just a collection of classrooms, laboratories and libraries, but a living space in which all the human needs of students and staff alike can be cared For. It is, if I may say so, Mr. Li, a tribute to the foresightedness of the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee that this building and its amenities have been seen as eligible for support by Government funds. Today Hong Kong and The Chinese University are facing many troubling issues, on which Lord Fulton would, I know, have had clear opinions which he would have loved to share with you and to develop with your help and i n your company. The vexed problem of the length of the degree is one of which he was very much aware, and I know that he was, and would still be, deeply troubled by the Government's pressure to bring The Chinese University into line with the other higher education establishments. As a product of Scottish schools and universities which operate the same structure as yourselves, and which now face some o f the same pressures, he would certainly be personally sympathetic. But beyond this, he was always alert to the problem of equity, to the effect of university admission policies on the curriculum and even the structure of secondary schooling, and to the importance of preserving an d enhancing diverse routes through higher education to common standards of excellence for graduates. Finally, it is hardly for me, even speaking in the place of a far wiser man, to comment on political events across the border in mainland China. The horrors of June have and will cast a long shadow, which everyone here has to confront in ways which we in Europe can hardly begin to understand. What I know Lord Fulton would have said is that The Chinese University, the values it represents, and the efforts it has made and wil l continue to make to spread those values, can only be a major force for good in these times. I am immensely proud that my father's name is now permanently associated in this way with Th e Chinese University. Thank you very much. 6