Lingnan to Confer Three Honorary Doctorates at Congregation

The Lingnan University ("Lingnan" or "the University") will confer Honorary Doctorates upon three distinguished international and local personalities in recognition of their outstanding academic achievements and contribution to science and technology, the cultural, educational advancement and the development of the University. The conferment will be held at the 36th Congregation of the Lingnan University on 24 November 2006.

Recipients of this year's honorary degrees are Lord OXBURGH of Liverpool and Mrs Alison CHAN Lam Lai-bing who will be conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws; and Professor TU Weiming, who will be conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature.

Lord OXBURGH of Liverpool

Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool chairs the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. A geologist and geophysicist, Lord Oxburgh taught geology and geophysics at Cambridge, Cornell, Stanford and the California Institute of Technology. He was President of Queens' College Cambridge from 1982-1988; Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence from 1987-1993; and Rector of Imperial College London from 1993-2001. He served as a University Grants Committee member for most of the 1990s, and was as a UGC panel chair that he first came to Lingnan University in 2002.

Lord Oxburgh is a fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the US Academy of Sciences. In 1999, his services to science were recognized when he was made a life peer and took the title of Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool in the county of Merseyside.

Lord Oxburgh is especially interested in the thermal behaviour of the Earth's crust, and recently he has turned his attention to climate change, energy and water futures and global development. A strong advocate of tax policies and tougher laws aimed at the reduction of CO2 emissions, Lord Oxburgh contributed substantially to bringing in the strategy and expertise in environmentally-friendly technologies as wave and tidal power. He has chaired various government committees including one on the safety of British nuclear weapons.

Professor TU Weiming

Professor Tu graduated from Taiwan's Tunghai University, then furthered his study in the United States on the Harvard-Yenching Scholarship. He obtained his master's and doctiral degrees from Harvard University. He taught at his alma mater, Tunghai University, then Princeton University, University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University.

He was head of Harvard University's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, chairman of Harvard University's Committee on the Study of Religion. Currently, he is director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy and of Confusian Studies in Harvard University, offering undergraduate courses in Chinese culture, religion, thoughts and Confucian ethics.

In the Graduate School, he is in charge of research projects on Chinese ancient texts related to Zhu Xi, Lu Xiangshan, Wang Yangming, Li Tuixi and Liu Zhongzhou. Over the past 20 years, Professor Tu Weiming has delivered courses on Confucian philosophy at Beijing University, Taiwan University and University of Paris. He is also a fellow at the US Arts and Science College, and honorary professor at China's Renmin and Zhejiang universities, honorary research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

Professor Tu's research interests are Confucian humanism, Chinese intellectual history, philosophies of East Asia, and Comparative religion. He has made outstanding achievement in Confucian studies and significant contributions to the spread of the Chinese culture.

Mrs CHAN Lam Lai-bing Alison

Mrs CHAN Lam Lai-bing Alison studied at Lingnan Primary School and Ying Wah Girls' School. Upon graduation, she attended the University of Hong Kong where she obtained a bachelor degree in science in 1965. With strong religious fervour and determination to pursue the truth, she enrolled in the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, US, after she graduated from university, and completed a master of arts programme in new Testament studies. In May this year, she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by the school.

Mrs Chan has contributed much of her efforts in work related to building up people's lives. While a lecturer at the Evangel Seminary, she was devoted to teaching and translating religious texts, winning acclaim for her work. In return to the valuable teaching she received in the past, she also made various contributions to her alma maters, acting initially as a council member of Ying Wah Girls' School, then the council chairperson to promote the traditional spirit of the school, over a period of more than 10 years.

Mrs Chan made important contributions to the Lingnan Education Organisation, having served in various positions including council and court members of Lingnan University, council member of the Community College at Lingnan University, chairperson and vice-chairperson of Lingnan Education Organisation, supervisor of Lingnan College, supervisor of Lingnan Hang Yee Memorial Secondary School, council member of Lingnan Primary School, etc.

Mrs Chan was committed to various educational and charitable organisations, being, for example, council member of Evangel Seminary, board member of Evangel Children's Home, board member and lately chairperson of the Hong Kong Cultural Exchange Service Centre, chairperson of Alison Lam Foundation, etc. For years she has been zealous for quality education work and shown much generosity by donating to various primary, secondary schools, hospitals, childcare centres, youth centres, elderly centres etc. She also supported education for orphans and the poor, etc in the mainland, in hopes of helping underprivileged mainlanders become independent and capable of contributing to the society.