President Xu's Letter to CUHK-Shenzhen Students and Parents
Dear students and parents,
As we have all felt, this is an unusual Lunar New Year. With the novel coronavirus spreading nationwide, CUHK-Shenzhen has, like schools of all levels across the country, announced the postponement of spring semester, and the exact starting date of the new semester is still yet to be determined. Under such circumstances, dear students, I understand many of you are experiencing anxieties. You feel concerned about your study plans, your chances of spending the summer of 2020 taking courses overseas. You might even feel uneasy about the impact this epidemic might have on your graduation and future academic pursuits. As the virus continues to strike new victims at an unrelenting rate, we are unable to make settled arrangements yet. But this uncertainty, I believe, will substantially lessen within the next couple of weeks. Our senior administration and our faculties are considering all imaginable possibilities and are working on corresponding solutions, of which, giving courses online is one. The university is committed in doing all that we can to accommodate your academic needs.
On your part, dear students, the wisest thing to do for now is to stay at home. Avoid exposing yourselves to public places as much as possible. In the meantime, returning to the university before it is announced safe to do so would be strongly discouraged. Given the highly contagious nature and the long incubation period of the virus, avoiding direct contact with the world outside is currently the best way to protect yourselves and your family. Indeed, staying at home for all the time being can be irritating. But let us not forget those who are unfortunately infected and are struggling to survive; nor let us forget those medical staff who are endangering their own life and health day and night so that others may have a chance to live. There is enough to feel grateful for whenever you think of them.
Much less to say, this might be one of the rare occasions in life when we could afford to spend time doing things that we seldom found time to do before. The book you have always wanted to read, the movie that has long been on your list to watch, the much needed tête-à-tête with your parents that has been put off by all sorts of excuses, what your busy academic life has kept you from actually doing, now is the time. Surely you might find life less animated as it usually is. However, it is often in solitude, when the world outside quiets down, that the light inside us shines through, clearly, brightly. Therefore, dear students, when this unexpectedly extended vacation comes to an end, I hope you will return to our university with health, meaningful experiences, and insights that can only be gained in trying times.
Under current critical situation, I want you to understand and be prepared that the life, work, and study of every one of us will be influenced. It is our duty to comply with the regulations and advocates by our government and health experts. Blaming others would not help us defeat the virus, nor shall proliferating hatred. To all our students and parents, I call for patience and empathy. The more emergency arises, the more need for love and humanity. We must not, I emphasize, discriminate against students and individuals from Hubei province. We have placed those with a travel history to Hubei under quarantine only for the purpose of protecting the larger majority of students and staff. And the quarantine will only last for a limited period of time. I call on us all to do our best to help our students in Hubei, and we will not leave them behind. Physical separation should not stop us from caring for each other. With the same sky above our heads, we are scripting one shared fate of the human race.
With your young age, dear students, this might be the first time you consciously witness a devastating disease sweeping the globe. Be cautious, but do not be afraid. On the one hand, we should take due caution in our daily life for it was lack of caution in the emerging state that has escalated the outbreak. On the other hand, please know that all crises will eventually exhaust themselves. When SARS struck in 2003, CUHK and its affiliated teaching hospitals were right in the midst of it. Almost each day, we heard of infection and death of people including those of our faculty. I remember wearing masks to my office just as usual, working and writing quietly. My monograph Human Behavior Learning and Transfer was completed during that very period of time. Apart from working, I wrote to my students and friends, sometimes with the mere words “the benevolent are not beset with worries; the brave are not disturbed by fears” for each other’s encouragement. Eventually, after roughly four months’ destruction, SARS disappeared. This coronavirus, too, will run its course, I believe, even sooner than SARS did. Dear students, again, this is by no means the end of the world. I will see you by the Fairy Lake under warm southern sunlight very soon.
All best wishes,
Yangsheng Xu
President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
