Lingnan University's 2nd Equal Opportunities Awareness Campaign kicks off to encourage staff and students to appreciate diversity
Lingnan University’s 2nd Equal Opportunities Awareness Campaign kicked off at Skylight Plaza of Lingnan University today (7 March), with Dr York Chow Yat-ngok, Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Prof Leonard K Cheng, President of Lingnan University and Prof Lisa Leung Yuk-ming, Chairperson of the Lingnan University Equal Opportunities Committee (LU-EOC) being the officiating guests.
The Campaign, to be held from 7 to 21 March, is organised for the second consecutive year by LU-EOC to arouse teachers’ and students’ awareness of equal opportunities and social inclusion as an intrinsic value of Lingnan’s liberal arts education. With the theme “Appreciating Diversity”, this year’s campaign encourages staff and students to appreciate, respect and accept different aspects of diversity such as physical abilities, ethnicities, gender, age and sexual orientation.
In his address at the ceremony, Dr York Chow Yat-ngok appreciated the University’s effort in raising awareness of equal opportunities on campus, “Among the 10 participating institutes of the Network for Promoting Equal Opportunities in Local Tertiary Education Institutes, Lingnan is among those who have taken the proactive step of establishing a specific Equal Opportunity Committee to oversee the policy and practice of equal opportunity, by organizing a series of events including this campaign. Such steps are important towards building a learning environment which is caring to all.”
President Leonard K Cheng remarked that the Equal Opportunities Committee in Lingnan (LU-EOC) has done substantial work on formalising policies, guidelines and mechanisms for the stipulation of equal opportunities on campus in the past year. “With the support of UGC, the Committee set out a series of infrastructural support for students with special educational needs (SEN), including facilities, equipment, training to students and staff for the support of SEN students, career and other assistance to SEN students and access friendly measures on websites.”
A variety of exhibitions and performances by different social or ethnic groups were staged at today’s kick-off ceremony. In the coming two weeks, the Campaign will feature a series of activities including exhibition, a staff workshop on “Supporting Students with Hearing Impairment and Visual Impairment, a sharing session on “Appreciating Diversity through Service-Learning”, a seminar on “Hong Kong’s Education system from the perspective of ethnic minorities”, and a talk on “Career Planning for SEN Students”.