This has been another year of strong progress for
NUS. We have further broadened and strengthened
our educational programmes, and continued to
expand and enrich our faculty and staff talent pool.
The first phase of our University Town, which
was opened in August 2011, has been a great
success. Its state-of-the-art educational facilities and
common learning and interaction spaces have been
extremely well received by students from across NUS.
We have also received very positive feedback on the
residential learning programmes in the University
Town residential colleges. A related initiative was
the phased extension of our Critical Thinking and
Writing programme, and we are on track for this
valuable programme to progressively cover the
majority of the NUS student body within the next
three to five years.
The setting up of the Yale-NUS College, which
will start in 2013, is proceeding well. We are
delighted that the first of several admission rounds
this year drew a very large number of excellent
applicants and resulted in the admission of a first
set of outstanding students. Similarly, the College
recruited an initial group of highly talented faculty
from amongst more than 2,000 applications. The
faculty have started working in earnest on the
details of a novel curriculum which we hope will
form the basis for a new model of liberal arts and
science education for Asia for the future.
Our network of alliances and collaborations
continues to grow, giving us a global footprint that extends our reach, and expands opportunities for
our students, faculty and staff. For example, the
NUS Faculty of Law has partnered with Tsinghua
University to offer joint law degree programmes
which will enable our students to gain exposure
to the tremendous growth in China.
On the research front, we continued our strong
trajectory of growth and impact across a wide
range of areas. In addition, NUS' research clusters
in finance and risk management, integrative
sustainability solutions, ageing, biomedical sciences
and translational clinical research, and Asia-related
studies are enabling our faculty to work together
across disciplines to address large-scale research
questions of vital importance to Asia and the world.
Even as we build towards the future, NUS
remains strongly committed to sustainable
development and stewardship of the environment.
I am pleased to report that NUS' efforts in
this regard have been recognised through the
prestigious BCA Green Mark Champion Award
from the Building Construction Authority (BCA).
NUS' achievements across these different
dimensions have been driven by the passion, hard
work and creativity of our talented community
of faculty, staff, students and alumni, and the
unwavering support of our friends and benefactors.
Collectively, we have continued to raise NUS' global
academic reputation and to create distinctive value
for society. We are well poised to do even more in our
quest to be a leading global university centred in Asia. |
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