Motto 仁義禮知信 (Chinese) Total enrollment 9,806 (2015) Chancellor Fernando Chui Founded 1981 | Rector Wei Zhao Phone +853 8822 8833 Color Gold | |
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Former names University of East Asia
(1981-1991) Motto in English Humanity, integrity, propriety, wisdom and sincerity Type Private
(University of East Asia)
Public
(University of Macau) Established 28 March 1981 (1981-03-28)
(University of East Asia)
12 September 1991 (1991-09-12)
(University of Macau) Address Estr. Nordeste da Taipa, Macau Undergraduate tuition and fees Domestic tuition: 26,800 MOP (2011), International tuition: 34,600 MOP (2011) Notable alumni Ho Chio Meng, Patrick Lau, Ao Man Long, Francis Tam, Miriam Lau Similar Macau Polytechnic Institute, Macau University of Scienc, City University of Macau, University of Saint Joseph, Hong Kong Baptist University Profiles | ||
The University of Macau (UM, UMac or UMacau, Portuguese: Universidade de Macau, Chinese: 澳門大學) is a public research university located in Macau. It is the leading tertiary institution in the city. It was founded in 1981 as the University of East Asia, 18 years before the transfer of Macau from Portugal to China. The University of Macau is the Special Administrative Region's (SAR) first modern university, and the largest university in terms of faculty size and programmes offered.
Contents
- Establishment
- Restructuring
- Relocation
- Mission
- Abbreviation
- Emblem
- Logo
- Academic Staff Association
- Reputation and rankings
- Academic organisations
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities
- Faculty of Business Administration
- Faculty of Education
- Faculty of Health Sciences
- Faculty of Law
- Faculty of Science and Technology
- Faculty of Social Sciences
- Honours College
- Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences
- Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering
- Moon Chun Memorial College
- Wu Yee Sun Library
- New campus
- Academic links
- Notable alumni
- References
Its predecessor, the University of East Asia (UEA) was a private university founded by a group of University of Hong Kong alumni, and most students were from Hong Kong, then under British rule. Prior to the transfer of sovereignty, it was acquired by the Portuguese administration and reformed as a public university following Portuguese university structure. UEA was then renamed University of Macau by Decree-Law 50/91/M in 1991.
It is now the only public comprehensive university in Macau, organised into seven academic faculties and ten residential colleges. The main medium of instruction is English, while certain courses are taught in Chinese, Portuguese and Japanese.
The university's first campus was located in Taipa Hill. In August 2014, the university was relocated to the new campus in Hengqin Island, Guangdong but continues to operate under Macau SAR jurisdiction.
Establishment
University level education in Macau goes back to the establishment of Saint Paul's College, in the XVI century. However, the University of Macau's predecessor is the privately owned University of East Asia which was established in 1981. The university started with undergraduate programmes which followed the academic structure of British universities with three years of study. English was the main medium of instruction and the majority of the students were from Hong Kong. In 1984, the first students graduated from and awarded the honorary doctorates for the first time.
Restructuring
In 1988, the Portuguese Macau government entrusted the Macau Foundation to acquire the university. The undergraduate programmes were expanded to four-year programmes which followed the academic structure of Portuguese universities in 1990, while English remained the main medium of instruction. In 1991, a new university charter was put in place, the university became a public university and was renamed the University of Macau The student enrollment rose to about 3,000 and the percentage of local students rose to above 80% just before the Macau's handover. The first master's degree students graduated in 1995 and the first doctoral degree student graduated in 1997.
Relocation
In 2009, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted a bill which approved the construction of the new campus of University of Macau on Hengqin, Zhuhai, Guangdong and authorized the Macau SAR government over the jurisdiction of the area. Later on, President Hu Jintao officiated the new campus groundbreaking ceremony. In July 2013, the new campus came under the jurisdiction of Macau SAR government. In November 2013, Vice Premier Wang Yang officiated the inauguration of the new campus. In August 2014, the university completed the relocation to the new campus and the 2014/2015 academic year started.
Mission
UM undertakes as its prime mission the advancement of scholarship and education in the realms of humanities, social sciences, business, law, natural sciences, engineering, health sciences, education and other areas.
Abbreviation
In Chinese: 澳 大 In English : UM In Portuguese: UMEmblem
The emblem of the University of Macau (UM) features a five-towered crest encircled by golden rings and the name of the university in Chinese and Portuguese.
Logo
The logo of the UM consists of two parts: the emblem and the university’s name in Chinese (澳門大學), Portuguese (Universidade de Macau) and English (University of Macau) with assigned colours.
Academic Staff Association
The Academic Staff Association of the University of Macau (in Portuguese: Associação dos Professores da Universidade de Macau, in Chinese: 澳門大學教師協會) is an association composed of full-time academic staff members of the University of Macau. The Association has a Presidium of the General Assembly, an Executive Committee and a Supervisory Committee.
Reputation and rankings
UM is ranked 88th by Times Higher Education 150 Under 50 Rankings 2016 in 2016.
Academic organisations
The university has seven faculties in the fields of Arts and Humanities, Business Administration, Education, Health Sciences, Law, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences.The university also administrates Honours College, Graduate School, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, Center for Macau Studies, Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management, English Language Centre and Centre for Continuing Education. They offer postgraduate and undergraduate programmes with more than 500 academic staff members involved in teaching and research.
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) comprises the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, the Department of English and the Department of Portuguese, the Centre for Japanese Studies, the English Language Centre, and it hosts programmes in Translation Studies, Philosophy and Religious Studies, French, Spanish, German and Korean.
The faculty has various facilities devoted to student development, including Language Labs where students practice simultaneous translation and machine-aided translation or perfect their skills in Portuguese, Spanish, German, Japanese or French. A black box theatre hosts various drama productions within the Faculty.
The Department of Portuguese Studies used to be the Institute of Portuguese Studies but was downgraded during the 1999 handover due to the anticipation that interest would decline. In 2001 UM began offering a bachelor's degree programme in Portuguese students. Enrollment grew from nine students in 2001 to about 240 students in 2011. In 2011 the Portuguese department had eight part-time employees and 30 permanent employees, with about three quarters of the permanent ones having PhDs. Michael Taylor of the South China Morning Post wrote that year that the downgrading of the Portuguese department was perceived as a mistake in retrospect.
Faculty of Business Administration
The Faculty of Business Administration is the largest faculty in the university. The medium of instruction for courses offered in the faculty is English. It offers several business programmes through its four departments: Department of Accounting and Information Management, Department of Finance and Business Economics, Department of Management and Marketing, and International Integrated Resort Management Program.
Faculty of Education
The Faculty of Education offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programmes. The faculty provides degree programmes of Secondary Education in Chinese, English and Mathematics, Primary Education and Pre-Primary Education, Educational Administration, Educational Psychology, School Counselling, Curriculum and Instruction, Physical Education and Sports Studies, etc.
Faculty of Health Sciences
The Faculty of Health Sciences is a newly established faculty which concentrates on the fields of life sciences and medicine.
Faculty of Law
The Faculty of Law offers bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral and postgraduate certificate programmes in the Chinese, Portuguese and English languages. The bachelor’s programmes is to prepare jurists who are familiar with Macau SAR legal system; the master’s and doctoral programmes purport to educate knowledgeable and qualified legal professional jurists who are competent to conduct theoretical research and teaching in Macau Law, Comparative Law, European Law, International Law and International Business Law. The teaching system of the Faculty basically follows the Roman-German regime with strict standards in teaching style, student recruitment and examination. The faculty members consist of legal experts from Macau, Mainland China, Portugal, Austria, Italy, Brazil, Belgium, India and other countries.
Classes in law are taught in Portuguese since Macau's legal code is in Portuguese.
Faculty of Science and Technology
The Faculty of Science and Technology was founded in 1989. A solid undergraduate four-year degree in the following departments has been developed: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department of Computer and Information Science, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Electromechanical Engineering, Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering and Department of Mathematics. More and more students have been accepted in big firms worldwide, adding to the rising recognition of the University of Macau.
Graduate degrees in the faculty have been developed since 1993, in the field of Civil Engineering, Computer Science & Information Engineering, E-Commerce, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electromechanical Engineering, Mathematics.
There are various kinds of enriched laboratories for teaching and research purposes in various science and engineering fields.
Faculty of Social Sciences
The Faculty of Social Sciences consists of the Department of Communication, the Department of Economics, the Department of Government and Public Administration, the Department of History, the Department of Psychology and the Department of Sociology. The Faculty provides more than several courses on average every semester, including Economics, Statistics, Econometrics, Political Science, Public Administration, Contemporary China Studies, Sociology, Communications, Journalism and Public Communication, Psychology, Historical and Cultural Relations between the East and the West, etc. The Faculty also offers a variety of master’s and doctoral programmes.
Honours College
The Honours College of University of Macau is the first Honours College established in Macao.
Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences
The Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences (ICMS) was established as the first research-oriented institute in Macau in 2002.
ICMS offers the PhD degree programme in Biomedical Sciences, and Master of Science degree programmes in Chinese Medicinal Science and Medicinal Administration, respectively.
Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering
IAPME offers PhD programme in applied physics and materials engineering.
Moon Chun Memorial College
Moon Chun Memorial College serves food in the College Hall and on occasion has High Table Dinners with distinguished guests. It offers Music Studios and has a yearly "Talent Show."
Wu Yee Sun Library
The University of Macau Wu Yee Sun Library is the largest library in Macau. It is a seven-storey building that has a floor area of 32,000 square metres and a seating capacity of approximately 3,000. The print collection includes 600,000 volumes of monographs, 6,000 periodical titles, and 13,000 volumes of old Chinese editions.
New campus
On 27 June 2009 it was announced by the Government of Macau that the University of Macau will build its new campus in Hengqin island, in a stretch directly facing the Cotai area, south of the border post. The Central People's Government authorised the Government of Macau to have jurisdiction over the isolated university campus and the legal system of Macau is applied in it. An underwater tunnel connecting the university campus to Macau is also included, in order for everyone in Macau can have free access to the university campus.
The university has been relocated to the new campus in August 2014.
Academic links
Since 1991, the university has established academic links and collaborations with more than 100 institutions around the world. It is a member of the International Association of Universities, the International Association of University Presidents, the University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific and the Association of Universities of Asia and the Pacific. The university's student exchange programmes bring over 300 students every year. The university is allowed to recruit students in 31 provinces and cities in China.
In 1997 the university established its first European studies programme, the Master of European Studies, in conjunction with the Instituto de estudos europeus de Macau (IEEM), and as of 2011 it also offers the Master in European Union Law, International Law and Comparative Law.