Internal Communications

Dear Colleagues,

When preparing my speech for the 35^th Anniversary Banquet, I recalled the key milestones in HKMU's 35-year history and reflected on our recent accomplishments. I would like to share these thoughts with you.

Our Journey:

• 1989 – The Open Learning Institute (OLI) was established to provide university education for working adults.
• 1996 – The OLI was granted self-accrediting status, which enabled it to quickly offer new academic programmes in response to fast-changing market trends and industry needs.
• 1997 – The OLI was renamed The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) to codify its university status.
• 2001 – The OUHK launched its first full-time, face-to-face programme, starting the transformation of The OUHK into a comprehensive university.
• 2007 – The OUHK joined the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS), putting The OUHK on the same level as government-funded universities in student recruitment.
• 2021 – The OUHK was retitled HKMU to reflect its new role in the higher-education sector.

Recent Initiatives:

In recent years, we have embarked on many new initiatives, and much of what we have been doing has no precedent.

For example, we've become Hong Kong's first University of Applied Sciences — but we can't look at any other university here to see how that works in Hong Kong!

We bought a hotel to provide student accommodation — something no other university in Hong Kong has ever done!

We also started planning to build another major campus — and the scale and scope of the Project is unprecedented for a self-financed university in Hong Kong.

We're working on setting up an “Industrial Centre” to take our engineering programmes in new directions.

And we're looking to create a new premium Town Centre for executive training, seminars and conferences.

All of this is completely new and uncharted territory for us!

Many of us know the Chinese saying, “cross the river by feeling the stones (摸著石頭過河)”.

When a university is moving forward so fast and embracing so many new developments, sometimes we can't feel the stones. Indeed, if it were just one person crossing the river, it would be impossible.

However, if we can get the whole HKMU community behind these new initiatives and work together, we will succeed.

Let us cross the river together!

Paul LAM Kwan-sing
President