We have only just finished the first week of classes for our newly arrived 1st Year students, and already the College seems to be proceeding at full pace.
For example, reflecting our very special identity as a United World College, and thus our commitment to building a deep sense of inter-cultural understanding, we welcomed a pleasingly large number of visitors from diverse backgrounds to the campus this week.
On Tuesday, we welcomed Dr Zemirah Moffat, an LPCUWC Alumnus (UK '98) who was visiting on her way back home in the UK from a conference in Australia. Zemirah, who is now a lecturer at the University of Kent, identifies herself as a 'participatory (AV) anthropologist'. She shared some of her ideas about the use of participatory photography to an enthusiastic group of our students, and I thought it was great to catch up with her after the lecture as she walked around the campus. We chatted for some time at the construction site of our new auditorium – a facility that she could not have imagined in her days at a student at the College.
On Wednesday, we held a ‘World’s Youth Climate Forum’, ambitiously organized by Jerry Tam (a brand new 1st Year student in his first week of classes!) with the assistance of Ryan Ng, one of our 2nd Year students who had attended the Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen with Jerry last year. We were delighted to welcome two visiting speakers to the Forum, Dr Rebecca Lee (Polar Researcher and Founder of China Polar Museum Foundation) and Mr Patrick Ho (an LPCUWC alumnus who is now the Public Engagement Leader on Climate with WWF-Hong Kong). The visiting speakers focussed on issues such as conservation and how to initiate a low-carbon lifestyle in the context of Hong Kong.
Later on Wednesday, we welcomed Dr Vanessa Farr, Senior Gender Advisor at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), who spoke about how gender impacts upon individual experiences of crises. Allowing wide-ranging questions from the students, Vanessa aimed to speak on the topic of “Peace and Development? - Can we achieve the Millennium Development Goals in countries in conflict?”
Then, on Thursday evening, we held our first GIF (Global Issues Forum) for this year. Although GIF sessions have been optional since GIF began in 2005, a change in our structure this year has enabled us to make five GIF sessions compulsory for 1st Year students this year, and Thursday’s session was the first of these. Exploring whether or not there is a link between ‘democracy’ and ‘development’, the discussion began with four mini-presentations of relevant case studies by 2nd Year students: India (by Kumar, who comes from India), China (by Isfandiyor from Tajikistan) , East/West Germany (by Nikolaj from Denmark) and North/South Korea (by Billy from Canada). This led into a robust and wide-ranging discussion in which many 1st Year students participated actively (and often passionately), mentioning their own personal experiences on several occasions. It was a brilliant start to GIF for the coming year.
On Saturday (yesterday) we welcomed the Chair of the Dutch National Committee, Mr Robert Collignon. He was visiting Hong Kong for a short stay of three days, and so we were delighted that he was so keen to find the time to visit the College during his short stay. He was shown around the campus by our three students from the Netherlands – Bas, Marlies and Queeny – and I was pleased to welcome him and to chat with him over lunch in the canteen.
On four afternoons this week, Di and I invited groups of the new 1st Year students to our home for welcome drinks. As we find each year, the new 1st Year students were an extremely impressive group of young men and women, whose idealism and integrity were a delight to experience. The UWC National Committees are certainly doing a great job in their selection processes these days!
And, as I do each year, I gave the new students three challenges that I hope they will strive to achieve during their two years in the College. I choose to give each new group of students different challenges from year to year, and therefore I won’t repeat them here because I have told the students that I want them to commit the challenges to memory and put them into action for the next two years – and furthermore, I will quiz them from time to time to check that they remember the challenges and to gauge their progress.
Yes, it has been a busy week, but things are sure to get even busier next week when the CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) program recommences. We have tried to rationalise our CAS offerings this year by reducing the number of offerings from last year’s almost absurdly high level of 99 activities from which to choose. We were only partially successful, though, and this year’s list still offers 96!
The main CAS activity with which I will be involved this year is “SJYC’11” – overseeing the committee that will organise the next Sino-Japan Youth Conference. Scheduled for August 2011, the conference will bring together young (pre-IB) students from Japan and China to receive high-level input, and to discuss and understand the different perspectives that each nation has towards the other as a result of various historical, political, social, religious, cultural and economic factors. Our hope is that by building authentic bridges of understanding, East Asia’s future can be more peaceful and harmonious.
I have a fabulous team of students working with me, and if the conference next year is even a pale shadow of this year’s successful SJYC, it will be absolutely sensational.