Peter Mathieson makes robust defence of young people and vows to uphold rights of students to express themselves
GARY CHEUNG AND STUART LAU
UPDATED : Tuesday, 14 June, 2016, 8:55am
The University of Hong Kong’s vice-chancellor has revealed that growing student activism has made “a handful of donors” reluctant to give money to the institution, but rejected criticism of the city’s “rebellious” youth.
In an interview with the Post Monday, Professor Peter Mathieson made a robust defence of young people and vowed to uphold students’ rights to express themselves.
He had earlier condemned their “mob rule” when students besieged a governing council meeting in January to press for a review of the governance structure and a face-to-face meeting with council chairman Professor Arthur Li Kwok-cheung.
“I have had conversations with donors who said maybe now is not the time to be giving to the university because they worry about that particular aspect,” Mathieson said, referring to student activism.
But he added that many donors took the opposite view and volunteered support for HKU.
“Overall, our donation income has been more or less steady over the past few years. It averages about HK$800 million a year,” he said.
Student leaders from the university were at the forefront of the 79-day Occupy protests in 2014. They have also been vocal and high-profile in discussing independence from China.
But Mathieson said he admired the younger generation.
“The youth in Hong Kong, including our students at HKU, are talented. Generally speaking, I think highly of youth in Hong Kong. They are hardworking, generally respectful for authority. They are very capable people,” he said. “I don’t think youth in Hong Kong are rebellious, troublemaking or difficult. ”
Universities should be places where controversial views, including those which sometimes might upset or offend others, should be debated, he argued.
However, the university chief admitted that HKU’s global rankings had weakened over the past few years.
In the QS World University Rankings released in September, HKU ranked 30th, compared with 28th in 2014. It held 18th place among the world’s top 200 universities in the Times Education Supplement-QS World University Rankings 2007.
In March last year, months before his appointment as governing council chairman, Li accused some HKU professors of neglecting research and teaching duties, thus precipitating the university’s falling rankings.
But Mathieson said yesterday the idea that the drop in global rankings was explained by what was going on in local politics was a “very superficial explanation”.
“We believe our staff and students are working hard,” he said.
Mathieson was adamant that strategies such as stepping up internationalisation and innovation, spelled out in the university’s vision plan for the next decade, would improve HKU’s position in global rankings.
As for his own future plans, Mathieson said he was focusing on his first term and it was too soon to talk about renewing his contract, which is due to expire in 2019.
He said the HKU vice-chancellorship was the best job ever for him, and he relished the challenges.
“In medicine, my specialty is kidney and kidney doctors relish complexity,” he said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1974754/hku-vice-chancellor-rejects-criticism-rebellious-youth-amid
