Positioning of the University and Its Ideal Graduates

Positioning of Lingnan University

Notwithstanding the challenges Lingnan faces, it has established itself as a unique university in Hong Kong by virtue of its liberal arts tradition. Fundamentally, Lingnan takes pride in the provision of, namely, a) quality whole-person education by combining the best of Chinese and Western liberal arts traditions; b) a combination of liberal arts with specialised disciplinary education, including professional and pre-professional education; and c) an optimal balance between teaching and research. The Lingnan education experience is characterised by students’ whole-person development, close staff-student relationship, a broad curriculum providing a liberal arts foundation and transferable skills, rich co-curricular learning, a full-residential campus, small classes, an institutional culture that enhances staff-student interaction within and outside classrooms and a strategic emphasis on globalisation.

Lingnan fully embraces UGC’s goal of role differentiation in higher education. It aspires to become a leading liberal arts university in Asia not only by offering a unique educational experience, but also by excelling in strategic research areas and community engagement. In short, Lingnan strives to achieve a good balance between teaching and research, with due attention given to research that informs teaching and learning.

Although Lingnan has made great strides in the 2009-16 period, there are challenges and issues that need to be addressed. To take the University to the next level by maximising its advantages and minimising its disadvantages will require not only the deployment of appropriate strategies, but also the effective engineering of changes in the University’s organisation structure, policy, culture and mode of operation.

Profile of the Ideal Lingnan Graduate

Liberal arts education at Lingnan University aims to cultivate skills, competences and sensibilities that enable graduates to pursue their goals with a sense of civic duty in a rapidly changing environment. Lingnan graduates will have breadth and depth of vision, the desire and capacity for public service, good sense of judgement and an awareness of the complexities that characterise enduring human dilemmas. (See Appendix 2 for a detailed profile of Lingnan’s ideal graduates).