不堪回首往時鄉。
Reminisces of My Time at the Department of Statistics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, from 1st August 1982 to 31st December 1985
I was a senior lecturer of statistics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (now merged with the University of Manchester) before I came to CUHK in 1982. I can remember well the interview in 1981 with Professor Gerald Choa (Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Founding Dean of the Faculty of Medicine) and Professor Peter Thrower (Dean of Faculty of Science) at the Hong Kong House in London. Peter did most of the interviewing, asking the usual questions of how, when, where and why. Just before Peter wrapped up the interview, he turned to Gerald, asking him if he had any question for me. Gerald said, `Dr. Tong, the Vice-Chancellor has asked me to ask you one question. Which secondary school in Hong Kong did you attend?’ I replied, ’I attended several and the last one was Wah Yan College.’ Gerald smiled and asked, ’Hong Kong or Kowloon?’ ‘Hong Kong,’ I replied. Then he said, ‘I myself do have one question. What would be the title of your inaugural lecture if you are appointed?’ I was rather taken by surprise and mumbled something like, ‘Oh, Professor Choa, I must confess I have not given much thought to the matter.’ I nearly added that I felt it might be premature. He looked at me for what seemed like a minute or longer and then said, ‘Dr. Tong, it is never too early to start thinking.’ To this day, I do not know if Gerald was giving me a hint or what. What I do know, however, was that he was very kind to me and my family during the entirety of my time at CUHK. I can still remember vividly my first meeting with him on campus. We arrived in Hong Kong in August 1982 only to discover that there was no air-conditioning at our university apartment of 1B Residence 6! Suddenly, the front-door bell rang. There were Gerald and Betty (his most charming wife). They invited me to go upstairs to his apartment at 8B to collect some electric fans!
The Department of Statistics was founded around the autumn of 1981. I was appointed in 1982, a year later than planned apparently due to funding problems with the Hong Kong University Grants Committee. In a sense, it was an offspring of the Department of Mathematics. Of the five academic teachers, four were formerly members of the Department of Mathematics. They were Drs. Nai-Ng Chan (senior lecturer), Sik-Yum Lee, Hing-Kam Lam, Chi-Ying Leung. The latter three were lecturers and former graduates of the Department of Mathematics before obtaining their PhDs from North American universities. The entire new department consisted of five academic teachers, two teaching assistants, one secretary (Mr. Billy Lam), one assistant computing officer (Mr. Kung-Sik Chan) and a junior (nicknamed Wai Kee). Our first-year undergraduate intake was 18.
There were advantages with a small department, especially for a young and inexperienced head of department. (I was 38.) Since everybody in the department knew everybody else, communications were never a problem. Staff-student relationship was very cordial; we had annual sports competitions-the staff, being still young, usually won! Teaching staff established the tradition of going for dim-sum lunch together once a week; bill-sharing was invariably executed by a teaching assistant according to the agreed principle of ‘the senior pays more’. To this day, we first-timers still remember the shared experience fondly. Right from the beginning, the department was conscious of the needs to establish its identity and reputation. We paid particular attention to the needs of the society and designed our curriculum accordingly. For example, our sole course on statistics in the first year concentrated on the principles of statistics, without mathematics. It was challenging for me to teach it but I remain convinced that this is the right way to train thinking statisticians! We introduced elements of actuarial science as early as the early 1980s. We had a reasonably well equipped statistical laboratory for the students to use. (At that time, desk-top computers were beyond the means of most of our students.) Our first external examiner was Professor George Tiao, then of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. He gave us strong support and sound advice. He was very impressed with the general quality of our course.
Although we were a young department, we cultivated strong links with China, Taiwan, Europe and the US. For example, we had exchange programmes with Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, China and the Institute of Statistical Science of Academia Sinica in Taipei. Moreover, we had distinguished visitors from around the world. I can still remember the excitements generated by the visit of Professor Hua Logeng, who was undoubtedly the then leading mathematician in China. The visit by the renowned control engineer, Rudolf Kalman, in 1985 just a few days after he received the Kyoto Prize left a lasting impression on the audience.
I left CUHK at the end of 1985 to take up the Chair of Statistics at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. My decision to accept the chair was partly influenced by the observation that there had never been an ethnic Chinese holding a chair professorship of statistics in the United Kingdom before 1985.
Since my departure from the department, I am very pleased to see that it has grown from strength to strength. It is noteworthy that it now enjoys high esteem in the statistical community, especially among Chinese statisticians, so much so that Chinese statisticians of international stature have been attracted to the department on quite a regular basis, e.g. Professors Wing Hung Wong, Jianqing Fan and Ngai Hang Chan. I am sure the department can look forward to many more.
On a Confucian calendar, 30 is an important milestone. Having reached it, the Department of Statistics at Chinese University of Hong Kong can now look forward to the next 30 years with confidence. I am very grateful to the University for giving me my first chair and am proud to have served her and her Department of Statistics.
Howell Tong (Formerly Founding Chair Professor of Statistics CUHK, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics, London School of Economics)
Canterbury, UK
13th September 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment