Hong Kong teachers, students express shock over decision to cut writing course

A unique tertiary programme of international repute has been scrapped unilaterally, leaving teachers and students in shock and calling for top management to reverse the decision.

The City University senate has decided that the master of fine arts (MFA) in creative writing programme will be closed this summer as not enough people have enrolled, the programme's founder learned early this week.

"It's a money question every year and so it's quite a shock for me and my colleagues because we finally turned things round and became profitable this academic year," said Xu Xi, a Hong Kong-born American writer who set up the programme in 2010.

"A university programme is not about making money, and our students have done very well with publications in literary journals and winning prizes. We have built up a pretty good reputation within a very short time. That's what hurts me the most because the university doesn't seem to know what it has lost," she added.

A letter signed by 25 well-known writers from India to the United States, including three Pulitzer winners, was addressed to the school's senior management, calling for it to reconsider its decision.

"The CityU MFA programme is the first truly global creative writing programme anywhere in the world," said the letter, dated April 28. "We feel that the MFA programme promises to make CityU a widely recognised centre of global literary and cultural dialogue, which will in turn contribute to Hong Kong's growing importance as an international centre of arts and culture," it added.