EnglishChinesePortguese

UM appoints linguist Chair Professor Hong Gang Jin as Faculty of Arts and Humanities dean

1:binary?id=ilQeS9HqqgLSccqA0HP60Dmfaa72eJZHaxFdRnjj_2FUMzSdGlIR7RV8CK3fC7VMjzLFa1crpM670_3D:UM has appointed the linguist Prof Hong Gang Jin as the dean of its Faculty of Arts and Humanities
UM has appointed the linguist Prof Hong Gang Jin as the dean of its Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Photo Download

The University of Macau (UM) has appointed the linguist Chair Professor Hong Gang Jin as the dean of its Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH). Prof Jin was a William R Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and a professor of Chinese at Hamilton College. She also served as the general director of the Associated Colleges in China headquarters. Prof Jin has outstanding achievements and rich experience in empirical research, teaching and administration. After assuming office as FAH dean, Prof Jin will formulate new teaching and research strategies according to the FAH’s strengths and advantages in order to enhance the faculty’s visibility and position at the international level.

Prof Jin is a linguist. Her research interests include second language acquisition, cognitive processing of languages, transfer of learning, input analysis, interaction analysis, curriculum design, and teacher development. During her 25-year tenure at Hamilton College, she published numerous books and research articles. Prof Jin has over ten years of experience in collaborative research with numerous universities in the United States, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and mainland China, and she has secured several major federal and private grants from the US, mainland China, and Taiwan for ten consecutive years. She has also served as the president or a member of the board of directors at numerous teachers’ associations in the US. She is currently the chair of the AP Chinese Development Committee. She was named the 1998 CASE National Outstanding Baccalaureate College Professor of the Year. She also received Hamilton’s 1963 Award of Teaching Excellence in 1996. In 2013 she received the NCOLCTL Walton Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition of her outstanding achievements in teaching and research.

Prof Jin noted that UM is determined to become a world-class university, as is reflected in its unique “4-in-1” model of education that meets the demand of the 21st century, its dual emphasis on teaching and research, as well as its comprehensive reforms in various areas including the establishment of the residential colleges. “I have received education in the US, and I have worked as an education professional at liberal arts colleges in the US for many years,” Prof Jin says. “I have experienced firsthand how liberal arts education emphasises well-rounded development and how it impacted the students’ lives and helped produce outstanding graduates for the US society. I hope to bring the philosophies and advantages of liberal arts education that I know to Macao and Asia so we could also produce world-class graduates.”

She adds, “Macao is a multilingual and multicultural society, which provides a treasure trove of material for teaching and research. UM students’ ability to communicate across different languages and cultures not only gives the FAH an advantage in teaching and research, but also serves as a solid foundation on which we can develop the FAH into a faculty with local characteristics.” After assuming office as FAH dean, Prof Jin will formulate new development strategies according to the FAH’s strengths and advantages. Such strategies are expected to include further expanding a research-oriented faculty team in line with international trends, and systematically reviewing the current curriculum setup and teaching process so as to establish a scientific set of curriculum evaluation criteria and a reform plan. On the student recruitment front, Prof Jin hopes to attract outstanding students from Macao and elsewhere, including overseas countries. She also hopes that the multilingual and multicultural environment of the FAH will expose students to different disciplines in the field of humanities, such as linguistics, literature, history, philosophy and religion, thereby guiding students to analyse the different human experiences in different parts of the world, explore the meanings of different things in the world, acquire positive morals and values, as well as develop a global mindset. 

UM believes that with Prof Jin at the helm, the FAH will be able to further enhance its teaching and research, promote high-quality, high-level international collaborative research with other universities, and achieve a higher position and a greater impact in the Greater China region and beyond. 


Media Contact Information:

Communications Office, University of Macau

Albee Lei  Tel:(853) 88228004

Kristy Fok  Tel:(853) 88228006

Email:prs.media@um.edu.mo

UM Website:www.umac.mo 


02/12/2014