People
Shue Yan's helmsman
"Changing the duration of the courses from four to three years could affect the students a lot. I could not do that for money," Dr Hu said.
His insistence was proven right, as from 2012, tertiary institutions here will switch to a four-year undergraduate degree structure.
Today, Shue Yan, which was upgraded to become the city's ninth university on December 19 last year, has 10 four-year degree programmes accredited by the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation. "Many of our departments are up to standard, like journalism, social work and sociology. Especially subjects of liberal arts, I think they are quite popular. I have the confidence," Dr Hu said.
The president proudly talked about one of his journalism students who professionally responded to a blast on a West Rail train that he was travelling on the Valentine's Day this year by capturing the chaotic scene with his camera. His photographs were run on many newspapers the following day.
"He was alert. And this shows that our students and our school have the ability to contribute to the society," he said. Despite the elevation to the university status, Dr Hu said they would not change their education mission reflected in the name "Shue Yan", which means nurturing benevolence and
cultivating virtue in Chinese.
"I aim at not only training knowledgeable elites, but also developing students' humanity," he said. "I hope my students would not only aspire after knowledge, but at the same time, value the virtues of humanity."
He added that his two sons, the vice-presidents of the institution who would eventually take over the running of the university, had also pledged to adhere to the educational ideal of Confucianism.
However, the president said he had no plan to increase the number of subjects or the number of students. "I wish outstanding students will come to Shue Yan, too. But using extra resources to attract them violates our principle, and we are not attractive enough to pull those students into our school,"
he said.
Dr Hu demonstrated how he was a man of principle 20 years ago when he refused to admit elite form five students despite the college facing a shortage of student intake from form six in 1988.
"Our mission is to give those academically uncompetitive students a chance to further their studies…taking elite form five students violated our mission. Therefore we chose to admit students from form seven," he said.
Shue Yan is the city's first private university.
Mr Hu says Shue Yan will stick to its education mission.