Faculty Management Retreat 2024 to brainstorm strategy in response to challenges ahead

FLASS has held its first in-person management retreat on 6 March 2024 since the annual event was forced to switch to online mode for several years due to the pandemic. Led by the Dean and four Associate Deans, the retreat focused on the discussion of various issues related to international cooperation and branding, undergraduate programme design, student learning and support, research and knowledge transfer, assessment of student performances, and quality assurance of FLASS programmes. Around 40 faculty members, including heads of departments, leaders of various programmes and chair professors, took part in the one-day retreat.

The retreat was kicked off by Professor Li Wai-keung, Dean of FLASS. The Dean introduced the novel Glass Bead Game Master (aka Magister Ludi) written by the famous German writer Hermann Hesse, the 1946 Nobel Prize winner in literature. Professor Li said Joseph Knecht, the main character of the novel and a master of the Glass Bead Game, realises one day that intellectual pursuits should not be pursued for their own sake but should also serve the betterment of society. He shared his learning from the story to the audience at the retreat: intellectuals should shoulder the responsibility of rewarding society and passing on knowledge to the next generation.

The whole-day retreat was divided into morning and afternoon sessions with the 40 retreat participants being divided into four groups to facilitate discussions. In each session, two Associate Deans gave a presentation on the work under their charge, followed by brainstorming time where participants shared their ideas and suggested solutions in groups to questions raised in the presentations. To close each session, representatives of the four groups presented the main points of their discussions to the whole body of attendees. Faculty raised many insightful questions and brought about deep discussions when the floor was open.

In the morning session, Professor Stephen Chiu Wing-kai, Associate Dean (International Engagement), shared his views on faculty’s strategies and initiatives on internationalisation. Professor Chiu reiterated that faculty members need to be concerned with the need to boost internationalisation. This could be achieved, for example, by organising learning activities which provide opportunities for our students to interact with foreigners or ethnic minorities residing in Hong Kong, facilitating FLASS students to take part in international events, such as conferences, competitions, forums, workshops, and so forth, and by inviting overseas guest lecturers to teach or co-teach courses provided by various departments under FLASS.

Dr Prudence Lau Leung-kwok, Acting Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies and Student Learning), updated retreat participants on the latest development of undergraduate programmes at FLASS, including the revamp of all Bachelor of Education (BEd) programmes into double degree programmes to be implemented in the 2025/26 academic year. She also explained to attendees the new elements that need to be included in our curriculum. These include entrepreneurship and innovation, digital competency, legal knowledge and national security education, and courses on new six arts for General Education curriculum, and so forth. She also mentioned several ongoing University-level projects that involve the faculty, including a variety of initiatives to support senior-year students as well as mental health and wellbeing of students and staff.

The afternoon session started with a speech by Professor Daniel Chow Hung-kay, Associate Dean (Research and Postgraduate Studies), on the enhancement of research output and impact, knowledge transfer, and development of postgraduate programmes with the highlight on the 2026 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) conducted by UGC. Professor Chow updated faculty members on changes of the respective weights of the three assessment criteria in 2026 RAE: research outputs, impact of the research work, and overall research environment. He said to reflect the international trend of placing more emphasis on the economical, societal, and cultural benefits a research work can bring, the weighting of research outputs will go down to 65% while that of impact of research work will increase to 20%. Weighting of research environment will remain unchanged at 15%.

The second afternoon presentation was delivered by Dr Bill Yeung Chi-ho, Associate Dean (Quality Assurance and Enhancement), in which he shared his views on quality assurance and enhancement of teaching and the preparation work for the third audit by the Quality Assurance Council (3rd QAC Audit). In response to the quantum leaps in generative AI technology, Dr Yeung re-emphasised the University’s stance of continuously exploring the potential of generative AI-enabled technologies, particularly regarding the adoption of AI technology in education to enhance the learning and teaching process. In his sharing, Dr Yeung also noted the challenges faced by educators in designing an effective and fair assessment mechanism for marking students’ assignments when they are allowed to use generative AI for doing homework.

Professor Li Wai-keung thanked all faculty members for their participation in the retreat: “I believe the retreat was productive, allowing members to share valuable insight in various areas. We are facing a rapidly changing environment in terms of internationalisation, student intake, changing metrics for assessing research work, and the irresistible rise of generative AI. The retreat exercise helped us to identify areas for improvements. We will consolidate the responses and suggestions collected from the retreat and address these challenges by taking prompt and appropriate actions.”

The Dean added that FLASS always works as a team in which all members share a common goal. “Despite all these challenges that have emerged recently, we as a team will succeed in making the faculty an even better place for teaching, doing research, and making socially impactful endeavours,” he said.