UM’s 4G: Great Building, Great Professors, Great Knowledge, Great Character

Source: Macao daily

Great Buildings

Advanced Facilities and Renowned Scholars

Visit the University of Macau’s (UM) current campus, and you would constantly hear this comment, ‘What a great campus!’ Yes, indeed. What a great campus! But it is a ‘great’ campus not just because of the size. More importantly, it’s because it has ‘great buildings’ and ‘great professors’ and is dedicated to creating graduates with ‘great knowledge’ and ‘great character’.  

Perhaps few people can appreciate the benefits of a much bigger campus more than faculty members like Dr Wei Jinchao from the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences. Dr Wei was among the first UM members to move to the new campus in 2014. When he stood at the 1-square-kilometre campus that is about 20 times the size of the old one, looking at the three shiny glass-fronted research buildings in front of him, he was completely dazzled. The research buildings, which Wei describes as having a very reasonable overall layout, provides two to three times more research space than the old campus, with six research centres and one testing service platform. 

Wei specialises in Chinese medicine quality control and new testing methods for food safety. For years, Wei and his colleagues dreamed of buying a high resolution mass spectrometer which could directly detect trace toxic substances in food, such as fungal toxins and heavy metals, but which would occupy ten square metres. Moving to the new campus made their dream come true. The acquisition of the high resolution mass spectrometer and other kinds of new equipment has accelerated research progress and created favourable conditions for the researchers to explore new frontiers. Wei says that UM is now not only on a par with first-rate universities in mainland China and neighbouring regions in terms of research facilities; it is also well on the way to joining the ranks of advanced overseas universities. 

Research Equipment Reaching International Standards

The new research facilities and the better research environment have created greater success in research and higher morale among the researchers. According to statistics from the Web of Science, the number of published papers by UM members jumped from 240 in 2011 to more than 1,200 in 2016, with citation frequency in 2016 exceeding 11,000, compared to only 1,800 in 2011. 

Many people believe that a library is the ‘soul’ of a university. The lakeside UM library houses 1 million physical books and a large number of electronic databases, which are the most liked resources for faculty members and students. Keeping abreast of the latest developments in different fields is of paramount importance to a university’s teaching and research activities. Wei says the university’s generous investment in databases speaks for itself. ‘I have seen many international exchange students marvelling at or expressing envy over our well-stocked library,’ says Wei. ‘They mainly visit the library to search for literature, and they seldom leave empty-handed.’

The green, picturesque campus is not just a great place for the students to learn and enrich their minds. The university’s emphasis on physical education and the availability of various sports facilities also make it a great place to exercise and build a stronger body. Sports facilities currently available to students include an Olympic-size swimming pool, football fields, squash courts, an archery range, rock climbing walls, a gym room, and a badminton hall. Students love these facilities, saying they are both ‘cheap and convenient’. Eric Chan is a doctoral student from the Department of Electromechanical Engineering. In 2014, he became a lab technician at the Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering. Having already spent 12 years at UM, he doesn’t seem to get tired at all. Indeed, he hopes to continue to stay at UM after graduation as a staff member. What is it about UM that has earned Chan’s staunch loyalty? He says UM is where he discovered his interests and academic strengths, played football with his best buddies, gave performance with his like-minded band members in the University Hall or by the lake, and worked towards a same goal with fellow dreamers. When a place is associated with so many beautiful memories, how can one say goodbye so easily? 

Quality Campus Environment Helps Students Develop Talents

People only want to stay where they feel at home. That’s why the residential colleges at UM try their best to create a home-like feel. Ginnie Liang, a first-year student from the Department of Communication, is a member of Shiu Pong College. She spends more than five days a week in the college, and she enjoys every minute of it. ‘There are all kinds of facilities in the college, the idea behind the design is to create a living and learning community,’ she says. ‘The college also organise different activities every day. Students are encouraged to organise and participate in these activities to discover their interests and potential.’

Ginnie also loves the meals prepared by the college. ‘The dining hall makes a point of serving new dishes. Those bitten by the cooking bug can cook in the pantry, which is available on every floor. There is a microwave oven and a refrigerator in every pantry. ’

There is a gym in the college, which Ginnie visits regularly. ‘There are treadmills, a table tennis table, and a yoga area in the gym. After finishing my yoga session, I would immediately go back to my room to take a shower, and then I would feel awesome,’ she says. Another place Ginnie frequents is the music room in the college. She loves to practice piano here as a way to de-stress. The band room next to the music room is very popular with college bands. There is also a multi-purpose room, which is a good place for lectures and other activities. The room is equipped with a projector and a DVD player, available for use by the students at any time. 

Environment can either make or break a person. To help students achieve well-rounded development, a university must first create an environment that is conducive to that purpose. Apart from the facilities in the residential colleges, the Student Activity Centre also has some rooms for student organisations to hold meetings or practice sessions. Many novel and creative ideas were born here! UM works hard to create a good environment on campus so that students can learn and grow together, develop their talents, and make beautiful memories of their years as college students. 

Great Professors

Inspiring Teachers

The renowned educator Mei Yiqi, who is hailed by Tinghua’s faculty and students as ‘Tsinghua’s president forever’, once said: ‘The greatness of a university lies not in great buildings, but in great professors.’ Developing a first-rate faculty team has long been identified as the first priority at the University of Macau (UM). In recent years, the university has internationally recruited many world-renowned scholars who are leaders in their respective areas of expertise. These include Chair Professor Chuxia Deng, a leading Chinese American scientist in the field of life sciences; Chair Professor Yang Yi, a leading authority in Chinese literary studies; and Distinguished Professor Mao Haijian, a veteran historian. In addition to recruiting masters in various fields, UM also regularly invites academic titans, including Nobel laureates, to give lectures on campus. 

When it comes to a university’s academic strength, numbers speak louder than words. The number of chair professors at UM (‘chair professor’ is an academic title a university confers to full-time faculty members, which denotes a very high academic status) jumped from 1 in 2008 to the current 21. In terms of the international mix in the faculty team, UM now has a faculty team comprised of nearly 600 people. 80 per cent of them are from overseas and hold a PhD degree. Many graduated from world-renowned universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford. In terms of honorary doctors, UM does not lack ‘A-list masters’ to give lectures on campus. These include Nobel laureates Chen-Ning Franklin Yang, Mo Yan, and Robert Mundell. The international faculty team has without a doubt played a positive role in promoting international collaboration in scientific research, instilling a global mindset in the students, and fostering international mobility among the graduates.  

The real purpose of a university is to educate students. But even the world’s best professors wouldn’t inspire the students to work hard if they were not willing to devote themselves wholeheartedly to education. Only when the students feel that the university and the professors genuinely care, will they go all out. Assistant Professor Chan Chi Hang from the Faculty of Science and Technology was born and raised in Macao. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Washington State University in the United States, he returned to Macao for internship, during which time he met Prof Ben U from UM’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and strengthened his determination to pursue further studies at UM. During his postgraduate studies at UM, he was greatly influenced by his supervisor Prof U, Vice Rector Rui Martins, and several other faculty members because of their work attitudes and passion for research. ‘My professors are very willing to spend time on the students,’ he says. ‘Every time a student wants to submit a paper, they would spend a lot of time discussing with the student and helping to revise the paper, sometimes working throughout the night, in order to improve the quality of the paper and do justice to the data.’ The hard work of the professors and students has paid off. Take this year for example. UM’s microelectronics team presented a total of six conference papers. ‘We are ranked among the top two in Asia, and we can even hold a candle to US universities, because only at the best of the best universities in the US can you see an assembly of faculty members with such a strong research capability.’

Fu Yinchang, a doctoral student of Chinese literature, studies with Prof Yang Yi, a leading authority on Chinese literary studies who is considered as one of China’s best literary historians in the 21st century and one of the most creative and influential scholars in contemporary China. ‘What I have learned the most from Prof Yang are his meticulous attitude towards academic research and his way of thinking,’ says Fu. ‘He often tells me that nothing is difficult to the person with the right attitude. With the right attitude, one can accomplish anything.’

Faraz Mohammadali Shaikh, a doctoral student from the Faculty of Science and Technology, specialises in molecular studies. After studying at UM for one year, he went to Oxford University, where he participated in a drug design project against Ebola for four months. Comparing his experience at UM with that at Oxford, he says that Oxford is without a doubt a top university in terms of research history and expertise, but he admires UM more for its complete support for the students. He is grateful to his supervisor Prof Siu Weng In for sharing her research methods and knowledge and for providing much valuable advice, saying that without the help of Prof Siu, he wouldn’t have successfully filtered out the two compounds from the 9 million compounds screened at Oxford.