Full-scale Relocation to Start Soon

source: My UM

Full-scale relocation to the new campus will start soon. Some faculties, including the Faculty of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of Education, and Faculty of Law, have either started or completed moving to the new campus. The rest of the academic units, including faculties and laboratories, are expected to start moving in June. Administrative units will start moving in late May. The relocation process is expected to last from May to August, with a short interruption during the exam period.

To ensure smooth relocation, the relocation task force has established a relocation coordination centre on the second floor of the Research and Development Building on the current campus, to be responsible for the various relocation-related tasks. In one corner of the centre are piles of boxes, which will soon be distributed to UM colleagues for packing. After the colleagues pack up their office items and complete the form printed on the box, or put the pre-printed label on the box, the moving company will move the boxes to the colleagues’ offices on the new campus. Peter Fung Woon Kee, deputy leader of the relocation task force, said, “We will be coordinating the move from here to make sure everything is smooth, and we will have our daily relocation briefings here as well.”

Moving an entire university to the new campus is perhaps, as Peter put it, the largest relocation project Asia has ever seen. So far 50,000 boxes have been prepared, and more may be needed in the future. When trying to develop a relocation plan, the relocation task force, which is headed by Vice Rector (Administration) Alex Lai, visited Hong Kong and other neighbouring places to learn from other universities’ experience, in addition to using a consulting firm. Peter says that while deciding on which departments to move first and which later, they needed to consider the needs and operation hours of each department, and they also needed to coordinate the efforts between different internal and external parties.

To facilitate such coordination, each department has assigned a representative to liaise with the task force. The representatives serve as a bridge of communication between their departments and the task force because they know their departments’ needs best and therefore are able to promptly communicate those needs to the task force. If you have any questions about the relocation, visit the task force’s website, talk to your department representative, or call the coordination centre at 83978008.