Dick Lai, head of the Security and Transport Section
In addition to campus security and transport service, Dick’s job responsibility also includes opening tenders and purchasing about 100,000 pieces of furniture for the new campus. “The new campus handover date kept changing. There have been a lot of variables on a daily basis. There is not a definite schedule for the handover of the buildings. The trial use programme also kept changing with the changing situation,” says Dick. “Only now have we truly been able to do our work.” The first batch of students relocated to the new campus in September. In late April Dick took over the interim responsibility over the first building on the new campus. In July and August he started making relevant security and transport arrangements. After the first batch of furniture was moved to the residential areas, he did the first air quality test to determine the content of formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds, in collaboration with the Office of Health, Safety and Environmental Affairs. Representatives from the Students’ Union were also invited to participate in the testing. “Our test results showed that the content of formaldehyde is within the safe range, which proves that the manufacturer did use environmentally friendly materials as per the requirements of the tender documents,” Dick explains. Dick says that despite the heavy workload, everyone is trying their best, hoping to bring the relocation to a perfect ending.
Chan Mao Kei, team leader of the Security Team, Security and Transport Section
On the evening of 19 July, at around six o’clock, Chan Mao Kei was assigned a very important task—arranging for some security personnel to get rid of a monstrous amount of adhesive tapes, planks, stones and other kinds of rubbish on the ground floor of the library within three hours. “We got a dozen outside security persons,” recalls Chan. “It wasn’t until past nine in the evening did we manage to get rid of all the rubbish. Back then there was no water in the toilets, so we had to fetch water from the Postgraduate Houses to fill the tanks in the four toilets.” That night Chan and the other security and cleaning personnel worked until well past ten before they took a bus to return to Macao through the Gongbei border, becoming the last UM people to leave the new campus before it came under Macao’s jurisdiction. Later, to save time, they decided to forego home and just rough it for the night on the current campus. At around five o’clock the next morning, they went to the new campus again, only this time through the underwater tunnel, to get ready for some VIPs’ visits to the new campus. “It was a short-notice assignment, and we didn’t have enough time or people,” says Chan. “But being able to be a part of this historic event makes all our efforts worthwhile. I’m also very grateful to those outside security people for their help. Later we got a thank-you letter from the university, which was very gratifying.”
Delfino Gabriel, civil engineer in the Campus Development Office
“Witnessing the birth of the new campus is like witnessing the birth of a baby, and you need to do your best to bring it up,” jokes Delfino. He points out that they have now entered the second stage, and in addition to completing all the follow-up work as soon as possible, they also need to coordinate with the contractor and the relevant government departments about the quality inspection, to make sure that each building operates properly. “We need to make sure that everything, electricity, water, air conditioning, water discharge, is safe and works properly, before the users (UM students, faculty and staff members) move to the new campus,” says Delfino.
Zico Choi, head of the Facility Operations and Maintenance Section
All the facilities on the new campus, such as lighting, AV systems, performance venues, artificial lake maintenance, fire protection systems, electronic monitoring equipment, are Zico’s responsibility. “Over the past couple of months, our job on the new campus mainly involved testing various systems to make sure that they perform their expected functions properly.” We interviewed Zico in mid-August, and by that time he and his coworkers had already finished testing some of the classrooms, one of the residential buildings, CCTV systems, intelligent systems, and so on. “All of our coworkers have been racing against time. We must finish testing systems in the classrooms and the residential buildings before the first batch of students move to the new campus.”
