President`s Speech - Named Professorships at HKUST

The Second Inauguration Ceremony of Named Professorships 2015
Vote of Thanks
by
Professor Tony F Chan, President
Colleagues, distinguished guests, students, friends and families of HKUST:
Welcome to the Second Inauguration Ceremony of HKUST Named Professorships. I have been
looking forward to this event with great anticipation. As the tagline of this Program says:
“Partnership for Excellence”. This ceremony is a tribute to the achievers both in academia and
community, one for their dedication and innovation, the other for their benevolence and friendship.
HKUST will turn 25 next year. For a university, we are still very young. The Times Higher
Education branded HKUST as one of the seven fastest-rising young universities worldwide. Not
only are our rankings moving up, but also our graduates are very well received by global employers.
According to the Global Employability University Survey and Ranking 2014, HKUST was ranked No.
16 in the world, only behind the likes of Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Caltech and MIT.
HKUST greatness is, to an enormous extent, the result of the hard work of our faculty members. A
Named Professorship is the best way that the university can honor its most eminent faculty and give
them the extra resources to pursue new frontiers in teaching and research.
Today, we will honor four top scholars who are great achievers in their respective fields. Prof
Jitendra V Singh, our new Dean of Business and Management, Prof Qiang Yang, Chair Professor and
Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Prof Xin Zhang, Chair Professor of
the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. And last but not the least, Prof Xiuli
Chao who is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and
Operations Management coming from the University of Michigan. Later you will learn more about
the wonderful things that they are doing.
The success of our Named Professorship program is built on the shoulders of notable and generous
donors. The four donors who have established Named Professorship for the aforesaid
distinguished scholars are indeed long-time supporters of HKUST. They are: Jebsen Educational
Foundation, Wong Check She Charitable Foundation, The Swire Group Charitable Trust, and Li &
Fung. Their gifts testify to a true appreciation of the pursuit of excellence. May I invite you to
give them a big round of applause?
Let me conclude by wishing the four named professors as well as other dedicated faculty of HKUST
continuous success in their work. Together, we will make HKUST a truly world-class institution
with significant global impact.
Thank you very much.