Lingnan protest reflects wider social divisions

Some students at Lingnan University are threatening to boycott classes after Leonard Cheng Kwok-hon, of the University of Science and Technology, was named Lingnan's next president. As the chairman of Lingnan's council, I oversaw the selection process.

Some students have been giving the media and their fellow students a rather inaccurate version of events. Essentially, they claim Cheng was chosen at short notice for his political affiliations and that student opinion was never sought.

In fact, a nine-member search committee - plus a student observer - started work last November. It consulted key stakeholders, including students, over the next president's desired qualities. At students' suggestion, the nine criteria included "student-orientedness".

After a tendering exercise, a recruitment company was selected. They approached 384 potential candidates. A shortlist of 21 was eventually trimmed to five for interview. After two rounds, the shortlist was narrowed to one.

The Hong Kong ordinance governing Lingnan University does not allow for the student union to have a vote on staff matters; there are also confidentiality issues involved in the recruitment process. However, I did ensure that the student observer on the search committee could comment and even ask candidates questions.

We asked candidates about all sorts of things, like their leadership abilities and their vision for the university. In a few cases, candidates might have been asked how they would respond to press inquiries about potentially sensitive issues, like June 4 activities. But no one asked about political leanings.

After Cheng's selection was announced, some students learned from the media that he had served as an adviser to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying during his election campaign. It was news to me as well, though apparently some of my colleagues on the search committee had known. No one had mentioned it because they simply did not consider it a relevant factor - quite rightly.