2019/2020 Orientation Welcome Speech
by Professor Fang Quan,
Executive Vice Dean of Faculty of Law
Dear Freshmen, Teachers, Parents and Guests,
Good afternoon!
On behalf of the Faculty of Law, please allow me to express the warmest welcome to the freshmen to our Law family.
For today’s welcome speech, I will talk about four issues which may concern the freshmen the most. Firstly, what kind of city you are in here? Secondly, what kind of school you have enrolled? Thirdly, what kind of Faculty of Law you have joined? Lastly, what kind of Law student you should become to?
Among us, we have local students, students from mainland China and maybe some of them were the first time to step in Macau. Macau is so called the Macao Special Administrative Region which is under the “One Country, Two Systems” of the People's Republic of China. With a population of around 670 thousand an area of 32.9 km2, it is the most densely populated region in the world. Also, with the Eastern and Western cultures are converged in Macau which made it to become a very special city.
Macau University of Science and Technology (M.U.S.T.) was established in 2000 and it was the first comprehensive university which was found after the Handover Day of Macau. Moreover, I believe that you have seen the posters all over the campus that M.U.S.T. will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.
In recent years, M.U.S.T. was developed rapidly and I would like to share 5 important points to you as in the following.
- U.S.T. is the only university in Macau which teaching China Law and Macau Law for Bachelor Program. This is a mapping of “One Country, Two Systems” in legal education in Macau.
- The Faculty of Law has two national platforms which are the “Macao Research Center for Intellectual Property” which was authorized by the Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education of China and the “Macau Research and Study Center” with the collaboration of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)Judicial Training Base.
- The Faculty of Law confers three academic degrees which are Bachelor, Master and Ph.D. Moreover, the Faculty has three affiliated institutions that are the “Legal Practice and Education Center”, “Research Center for Arbitration and Dispute Resolution” and the “Macau Examination Center for International Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS)” respectively.
- Faculty of Law wasestablished in March 2000, and it was one of the four founding faculties when the university was founded.
- Many excellent students were nurtured and graduated in M.U.S.T. In 2019, one of our outstanding undergraduate graduate was accepted by the University of Cambridge, The London School of Economics and Political Science, King's College London, University of Edinburgh and University of Durham at the same time. This reflected that Faculty of Law has a significant achievement in recent years.
Here, let me share of how to become knowledgeable, skillful, visionary and affectionate law talents
- Knowledgeable – Legal expertise and liberal study are also important for Law students. As the Law students, you are not only studying the Law knowledge, but also the knowledge of philosophy, sociology, history, psychology, logic, aesthetics, etc. This is to enhance yourselves to be more professional.
- Skillful – Jurisprudence is an applied social science. You should able to apply your knowledge of concepts, principles and law to solve the legal problems in your real life. Law students not only have to confront the examinations in Faculty, but also have to take part in many legal professional examinations in order to become the law professions. With the authorization of the Macau Government, a new Bachelor of Law study scheme was implemented this year. “Case Study” has been added to the elective courses, the purpose of this subject is to strengthen cultivation of students' professional skills.
- Visionary – On one hand, you should have a cross-jurisdictional vision. As law is endemic but not cosmopolitan system. For instant, there are three different legal systems among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. However, the world is in an era of integrated globalization, so that students have to study well your jurisdiction district law and at the same time to learn and understand the law system of different places. On the other hand, Faculty of Law provides China Law and Macau Law to the Bachelor students, we also encourage students to audit in to other jurisdiction classes to understand more other legal fields which can let you to become more competitive cross-domain legal talents in the future. Furthermore, due to the new development, such as the emergence of AI technology, we have to prepare in advance to launch into new challenges.
- Affectionate – Seemingly, law is a rule for disputing settlement, but essentially it is to achieve fairness and justice. Every legal professional or legal-professional-to-be should pursue the value of the sense of mission and responsibility.
The above four points are my objectives of how to nurture law students.
March 2020 will be the 20th anniversary of Faculty of Law. Please join us to compose a new chapter for the development of Faculty of Law. Moreover, I do hope that you can spend a memorable time in Faculty of Law.
All the best to you all
Thank you very much
