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84
The references to discipline in paragraph 62, 81 and 84 are matters of very serious implication. These statements have occasioned astonishment and concern within the University and are likely to create an entirely unjustified impression outside its walls. The professors of this University are not aware of any breaches of discipline justifying the statements made in these
paragraphs.
Paragraph 81, 82 and 83 suggest alterations in the constitution which we view with concern, and they are in our opinion, absolutely foreign to accepted British university procedure and
tradition.
This Court must ever keep in mind the fact that this is not an isolated institution wholly peculiar to Hong Kong but is, and always must remain, an integral and useful part of the British university educational system; the truncation of two of the faculties as advocated in this Report together with the recommend- ations regarding internal organisation are such as to endanger the status of this institution as a university in that system.
Some of the views and recommendations regarding academic courses must evoke strong protests from the departments and faculties concerned, and we are glad to hear that this Court, the supreme governing body of the University, will have an opportunity of hearing criticisms of these recommendations from an academic
point of view. Since our ideas on many vital points are contrary to those expressed in this Report, we consider that the Court can only arrive at a just and final conclusion concerning them after it has had before it the recommendations of some disinterested
person or persons of established academic repute in the United Kingdom; we consider such person or persons should be invited to supplement this Report from an academic point of view.
With the assurance that these matters will receive your
earnest consideration we beg to add our support to the resolution
now before the meeting, and in so doing, we cannot think of a more
fitting method of summarising our thoughts and feelings than by