Nobel laureate Sir James Mirrlees, dean of a new college at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, spelled out this week his vision for Morningside College - several years before it is due to be built.
Sir James, 70, who won the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 1996 and was knighted in 1997, said he hoped to create a strong international scene by bringing in scholars from overseas and maintaining the proportion of foreign students at 25 per cent at the minimum.
'I hope the college will be a place to have conversations of the highest sense. [This is] fundamental to higher education,' he said.
Interaction between tutors, fellows and students would be encouraged and an Oxbridge style of tutorials, essay-writing and discussions would be introduced, said Sir James, who was Edgeworth Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford between 1968 and 1995 and Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge from 1995 to 2003.
Sir James, who has been Distinguished Professor-at-Large at CUHK since 2002, said he would like to join students at communal dinner three or four times a week.
Details such as the site of the college, the date of the opening, accommodation fees and operating costs have yet to be worked out.