HONG KONG – Forty-two undergraduates and post-graduates, representing six faculties and affiliated colleges, celebrated the culmination of their time at Western as the university held its ninth annual Hong Kong convocation ceremony May 26 in the Grand Ballroom of the Conrad Hong Kong.
Amit Chakma, Western president; Janice Deakin, provost and vice-president (academic); and deans Brian Timney, Faculty of Social Science, and Carol Stephenson, Ivey Business School, joined more than 350 guests at the event – including Faculty of Arts, Huron University College graduate Jinghan He, who welcomed 18 family members to see her graduate.
From 2001-04, Ivey celebrated a convocation for its Hong Kong campus. In 2005, that convocation was expanded to include all Western faculties and affiliates. The university now celebrates a full Hong Kong convocation, complete with gonfalons and a replica mace.
Anthony Jun Wu was named valedictorian of the EMBA Class of 2013; Kathryn Logan Clouston, Sean Patrick Rogers and Chin Lam Wong received Ivey Scholar Awards.
Lap-Chee Tsui, University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor, pictured here with Deakin, received an honorary degree at the event.
An internationally recognized scholar and geneticist, Tsui received international acclaim in 1989 when he identified the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis, the most common recessive genetic disease that affects human beings. In the outbreak of SARS in 2003 in Hong Kong, Tsui contributed significantly to fight against the SARS coronavirus and led the Hong Kong consortium in the international effort (the HapMap Project) in completing the first comprehensive catalogue of human genetic variations in 2005.
In 2002, Tsui was named the 14th vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, and in that role has transformed academics and research in that important international institution. All the while, he has maintained his international research profile, collaborations and devotion to education and training.