480 Hours Before New Campus Inauguration

The inauguration ceremony for the new campus was held on 5 November 2013. Wang Yang, vice premier of the State Council, officiated at the plaque-unveiling ceremony, in the company of Chui Sai On, chief executive of Macao SAR and chancellor of UM. More than 500 guests witnessed the landmark moment in the university’s history. The entire ceremony, which lasted only an hour, was a smooth and solemn occasion, but the 480 hours before the event had been hectic. This issue of My UM tells you how over 300 UM colleagues worked literally day and night to pull off this big event within just 20 days.

For Katrina Cheong, director of the Communications Office, the preparation process could be summed up in four words, “limited time” and “complicated coordination”. Katrina and her colleagues had always known there was going to be an inauguration ceremony, but for various reasons they had only 20 days to actually prepare for the event. The invitations were sent 10 days before the event because that was when the list of guests was finalised. Katrina’s office has organised a lot of big events over the years, but what made the new campus inauguration ceremony different from all the previous events was the need to liaise with the various government departments on a 24/7 basis and the necessity of making meticulous security plans to ensure the safety of those invited government officials and other guests. To make sure the guests could receive the entry permit in time, UM colleagues needed to collect the guests’ personal information, make the entry permits, and send back the permits for confirmation within one week. During that week, the Communications Office handled nearly 1,000 entry permits for invited guests and their vehicles, in addition to answering hundreds of telephone enquiries on a daily basis.

A lot of things had to be accomplished within 20 days—making a detailed event plan, finalising the guest list, obtaining entry permits and completing other relevant formalities for over 500 guests, setting up the venue, selecting musical numbers for the ceremony, and conducting rehearsals. Colleagues from the various departments and student performers were very supportive and showed a lot of initiative, taking care of the different aspects of the preparation. Thanks to their hard work, the inauguration ceremony was a great success, and a series of academic events were organised around the inauguration day (see the table below for details).

The Inauguration Ceremony as I Remember It

Your Recognition, My Motivation

Esther Chan works in the Communications Office. Her responsibilities related to the new campus inauguration ceremony included setting up the stage, receiving guests, as well as arranging refreshments and campus tours. These tasks may sound simple, mundane even, but carrying them out was a lot more difficult and time-consuming. Take stage setup for instance. The repeated site checks and negotiation over the details were not the worst part, the real challenge lay in the complicated procedures for obtaining entry and exit permits for the various parties concerned, especially given the impossibly tight work schedules.

What Esther remembers most from the ceremony were the praises from the guests. “I took the guests on a tour of the campus after the ceremony, and they were all so impressed,” Esther says. “They kept saying how amazing it was for the university to build such a large, beautiful campus within just a little over three years. And hearing what they said, I couldn’t help but feel really proud that I had the opportunity to be a part of this project. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that the new campus has ushered in a new era for higher education in Macao.”

Danger’s in the Detail

There is no doubt the new campus has ushered in a new era for higher education in Macao, and for Dick Lai, head of the Security and Transport Section of the Campus Management Office, who was mainly responsible for security and transport, it also provided a whole new experience. Although the new campus was not fully open to the guests attending the ceremony, managing those open areas still presented a steep learning curve for Dick and his colleagues. What made this learning curve steeper was the fact that they had to pay close attention to every little detail in order to identify safety hazards. Once, during an inspection of the event venue by the Macao Fire Services Bureau, Dick and his colleagues noticed that some construction paraphernalia was stacked on the not-yet-finished ceiling above the stage, and they immediately removed it. “From my experience, those details that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with security are often the hidden safety hazards,” says Dick.

Striking the Right Note

For Yuki Ieong, first-year student from the Faculty of Education who played saxophone along with other members of UM’s Symphonic Band at the ceremony, the importance of detail is certainly something she can relate to. For her, the most memorable part of the event was the welcome number accompanying the procession’s entry into the University Hall. “You needed to follow the conductor, but you also needed to consider the pace of the procession,” says Yuki. “The music must stop precisely at the moment the last one in the procession entered the venue. Unless you are superbly practiced and familiar with what you are doing, you can’t achieve that kind of precision.”

Striking the right note is important, whether you are playing an instrument, or presenting campus information to a group of guests. Rita Huo, a secondyear master’s student from the Department of Chinese, is a quiet, shy girl often mistaken for an undergraduate because of her petite build. In preparation for the inauguration ceremony, she memorised 75 pages of campus information in Chinese and English. “It really wasn’t easy,” says Rita with a shy smile, flush rising in her cheeks, “but it was a great opportunity to learn to overcome my shyness.”