The Asian Conference on the Liberal Arts 2019 (ACLA2019)

Final Programme

The online version of the Conference Programme is now available to view below via the Issuu viewing platform. Alternatively, download a PDF version. The Conference Programme can also be viewed on the Issuu website (requires a web browser). An Issuu app is available for Android users.

The Conference Programme contains access information, session information and a detailed day-to-day presentation schedule. All registered delegates who attend conference receive a printed copy of the Conference Programme at the Registration Desk on arrival.


The Final Call for Papers deadline has passed.

If you are listed as the author or co-author on a paper that has been accepted for presentation, please visit the Presenter Registration page. To register as an Audience member, please visit the Audience Registration page. Thank you.


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Conference Theme: "Uncertain Futures: The Role of Liberal Arts Education"

November 08–10, 2019 | Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Welcome to The Asian Conference on the Liberal Arts (ACLA), held concurrently with The IAFOR Conference for Higher Education Research – Hong Kong (CHER–HongKong), and with the combined theme of “Uncertain Futures”, to be held at Lingnan University, Hong Kong’s only public liberal arts university.


Given the rate of change in today’s world, the future has never seemed less certain, to either students or teachers. This conference will concentrate on the role of formal education in preparing students for uncertain futures, and for societies that are changing at great speed.

With the positive aspects of globalisation that have transformed how we work and interact with each other, we must also consider the more negative impacts on societies and the natural environment. For those resistant to the growing interconnectedness brought by globalisation, some retreat into nationalism, regionalism, populism and authoritarianism, frequently driven by fear-based politics, and fears of an uncertain present, and scary future.

Globalisation been driven by massive leaps forward in technology. Technologies have made life better in so many ways, but they have also contributed to great losses of personal privacy, and increased reports of alienation as social media and online life vye for time with “real” life. Until fairly recently, technology was driven by policy, as opposed to the current situation where it exists before any ramifications can be fully considered.

Artificial intelligence and robots are already replacing many more routine jobs, and while technology may create many as yet unimagined jobs, teachers and professors are in the position of having to educate for the unknown. How do we keep the Liberal Arts relative in this high-tech world? How then do we respond effectively to uncertain futures by repurposing liberal arts education? How do we reimagine teaching, lecturing, nurturing, mentoring, and the curation and transmission of knowledge? How do we prepare for students to thrive when confronted with the unexpected? How do we plan for as yet unknown disruptive change?

The past decade has been a challenging one for liberal arts education as it has been seen by some governments and actors as less useful than “more practical” areas of study, by which they mean it is difficult to quantify in the same ways as the sciences, and in particular the “hard” sciences. This has lead, in many countries, to a reappraisal of their role in the face of budget cuts in favour of other subjects, but has also lead to a reconceptualisation and rebranding of the liberal arts, from the futile and fanciful of their caricature, to instead hard- nosed selling of their fundamental need in both analysing and interpreting information, and framing and exploring all other subjects. This is a recognition of their crucial importance in helping foster and nurture the skills that will be required for future generations.

The ACLA and CHER conference will look at these questions and more. In these times of change one thing is certain, we have a lot to learn from each other. We look forward to challenging discussions, engaging ideas, and helping to shape the future when we meet at the conference.

We look forward to seeing you there!

– The ACLA Advisory Board and Organising Committee

Bernard Charnwut Chan, Executive Council of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR, Hong Kong
Joseph Haldane, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Donald E. Hall, University of Rochester, USA
Joshua Mok, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Ada Wong, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Weiyan Xiong, Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Key Information
  • Location & Venue: Lingnan University, Hong Kong
  • Dates: Friday, November 08, 2019 ​to Sunday, November 10, 2019
  • Conference Theme: "Uncertain Futures: The Role of Liberal Arts Education"
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: June 28, 2019*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: August 29, 2019
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: September 26, 2019

*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.


Keynote Speakers

  • Leonard K Cheng
    Leonard K Cheng
    Lingnan University, Hong Kong
  • Adam R. Nelson
    Adam R. Nelson
    University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
  • Simon Marginson
    Simon Marginson
    University of Oxford, UK
  • Francis Green
    Francis Green
    University College London, Institute of Education, UK
  • Deane Neubauer
    Deane Neubauer
    East-West Center, USA

Featured Speakers

  • Joshua Mok
    Joshua Mok
    Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Lingnan University, Hong Kong | Conference Venue

Lingnan University, Hong Kong

About Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Founded in Guangzhou in 1888 and re-established in Hong Kong in 1967, Lingnan has the longest history among all local tertiary institutions. Its vision is to be a leading Asian liberal arts university with international recognition, distinguished by outstanding teaching, learning, scholarship and community engagement. Lingnan is committed to providing quality whole-person education by combining the best of Chinese and Western liberal arts traditions; nurturing students to achieve all-round excellence and imbuing them with our core values; and encourage faculty and students to contribute to society through original research and knowledge transfer.

On the auspicious occasion of celebrating its golden jubilee, Lingnan has achieved a leap in ranking that puts it in the top 100 Asian universities in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings 2018. In 2015, Lingnan University was also named as one of the top 10 liberal arts college in Asia by Forbes. Lingnan is dedicated to building an international campus and actively establishing strategic collaborations with prominent universities worldwide.


Visit Hong Kong

As the world’s largest continent continues to develop, so do its educational and academic needs, and as the global economy recentres towards the Asia-Pacific region, the relevance and significance of IAFOR as an interdisciplinary think tank for both Asia and the West grows. With international events held in Hong Kong and Japan, IAFOR's Asian Conference Series is the ideal forum in which to discuss emerging regional and global issues, and to keep up to date with the latest interdisciplinary research across a range of academic fields.


Why Join an IAFOR Conference?

The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) welcomes academics from all over the world to our interdisciplinary conferences held in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Our events provide a unique international, intercultural and interdisciplinary environment in which to hear the latest world-class research and network with leading academics, professionals and practitioners.

Our conferences are meticulously planned under the direction of prominent academics to ensure that they offer programmes of the highest level, and are supported by some of the world’s leading academic institutions, including the University of London (UK), Virginia Tech (USA), University of Barcelona (Spain), Waseda University (Japan), University of Sussex (UK), Medill School of Journalism (USA), Moscow State University (Russia) and The University of Tokyo (Japan).

By facilitating dialogue between the world’s academics and thought leaders, IAFOR has become a pioneer in providing the research avenues and visionary development solutions that are necessary in our rapidly emerging globalised world. We welcome you to engage in this expanding global academic community of individuals and network of institutions, and look forward to seeing you at one of our future events.

Leonard K Cheng
Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Biography

Professor Leonard K Cheng is President of Lingnan University, Hong Kong. After his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, he taught at the University of Florida for 12 years. He joined the School of Business and Management of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1992, where he served as Head of Economics, Associate Dean, Director of PhD and MBA programmes, Acting Dean and Dean. He joined Lingnan University as President in September 2013.

Professor Cheng’s research interests include applied game theory, market structure, currency crisis, international trade and investment, technological innovation and imitation, and China’s inward and outward foreign direct investment.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Boya Education in China: Lessons from Liberal Arts Education in the U.S. and Hong Kong
Adam R. Nelson
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Biography

Adam R. Nelson is Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. in history from Brown University. His publications include Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn, 1872-1964 (2001); The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston’s Public Schools (2005); Education and the Culture of Print in Modern America, co-edited with John L. Rudolph (2010); and The Global University: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives, co-edited with Ian P. Wei (2012). He is currently writing a book titled Empire of Knowledge: Nationalism, Internationalism, and American Scholarship, 1780-1830. His research has been funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard, the Advanced Studies Fellowship Program at Brown, and the Vilas Associate Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He co-directs the “Ideas and Universities” project of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN; see https://wun.ac.uk/wun/research/view/ideas-and-universities).

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Presentation information will be added here shortly
Simon Marginson
University of Oxford, UK

Biography

Simon is Professor of International Higher Education at the University of Oxford, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Higher Education, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Tsinghua Journal of Education. Simon has worked at the University of Oxford since September 2018. Prior to that he was Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education (2013–2018), Professor of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne (2006–2013), and Professor of Education at Monash University (2000–2006). He was the Clark Kerr Lecturer on higher education at the University of California, Berkeley in 2014, and in the same year received the Distinguished Research Award from the Association for Studies of Higher Education in the United States. He is a member of Academia Europaea, a Lifetime Fellow of the Society for Research into Higher Education in the UK, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK and Australia.

Simon is one of the most cited scholar-researchers in the world in the field of higher education studies (h-index Google Scholar 51, Web of Science 16). He draws on and integrates a range of social science disciplines in his work, primarily political economy and political philosophy, historical sociology and social theory. He works primarily on globalisation and higher education, international and comparative higher education, and higher education and social inequality. He is currently researching the public good contributions of higher education, and completing a book with colleagues on the implications of the worldwide trend to high participation systems of higher education.

His books include Markets in Education (1997), The Enterprise University (with Mark Considine, 2000), Global Creation (2009) and Imagination (2010) with Peter Murphy and Michael Peters, International Student Security (with Chris Nyland, Erlenawati Sawir and Helen Forbes-Mewett, 2010), Higher Education and Globalisation (edited with Roger King and Rajani Naidoo, 2011), Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific: Strategic Responses to Globalisation (edited with Sarjit Kaur and Erlenawati Sawir, 2011), Higher Education in Vietnam (with nine co-authors, 2014), The Age of STEM (edited with Brigid Freeman and Russell Tytler, 2015), The Dream is Over: the Crisis of Clark Kerr’s Californian Idea of Higher Education (2016) and Higher Education and the Common Good (2016).

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Equal but Different: Global and Regional Implications of the Rise of China in Universities and Science
Francis Green
University College London, Institute of Education, UK

Biography

Francis Green is a Co-Investigator on CGHE’s social and economic impact of higher education research programme. Francis is Professor of Work and Education Economics at UCL Institute of Education. He writes on skills, education, training, job quality and industrial relations issues, and has worked as an advisor to the OECD, the European Union, the World Bank, and the UK and Singapore governments.

He is the author of Skills and Skilled Work. An Economic and Social Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Graduate Employment and Under-Employment
Deane Neubauer
East-West Center, USA

Biography

Deane Neubauer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He currently also serves as the Associate Director of the Asia Pacific Higher Education Research Partnership (APHERP) which conducts a wide range of policy-focused research with a special focus on higher education. He is also currently an adjunct fellow of the East-West Center, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Deane holds a BA from the University of California, Riverside, and MA and PhD degrees from Yale University. Over the course of his career he has focused on a variety of political and policy areas including democratic theory, public policy, elections and various policy foci, including education, health, agriculture and communication. He has held a wide variety of administrative positions at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and the 10 campus University of Hawaii system. He also has over twenty-years experience in US-oriented quality assurance.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Engaging the Forces Propelling the Repurposing of Higher Education
Joshua Mok
Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Biography

Professor Joshua Mok Ka-ho is the Vice-President and concurrently Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of Lingnan University. Before joining Lingnan, he was the Vice President (Research and Development) and Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of The Hong Kong Institute of Education, and the Associate Dean and Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences of The University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, Professor Mok was appointed as the Founding Chair Professor in East Asian Studies and established the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom.

Professor Mok is no narrow disciplinary specialist but has worked creatively across the academic worlds of sociology, political science, and public and social policy while building up his wide knowledge of China and the region. Professor Mok completed his undergraduate studies in Public and Social Administration at the City University of Hong Kong in 1989, and received an MPhil and PhD in Sociology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1991 and The London School of Economics and Political Science in 1994 respectively.

In addition, Professor Mok has published extensively in the fields of comparative education policy, comparative development and policy studies, and social development in contemporary China and East Asia. In particular, he has contributed to the field of social change and education policy in a variety of ways, not the least of which has been his leadership and entrepreneurial approach to the organisation of the field. His recent published works have focused on comparative social development and social policy responses in the Greater China region and East Asia. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Public Policy (London: Routledge) and Asian Education and Development Studies (Emerald) as well as a Book Series Editor for Routledge and Springer.

Featured Presentation (2019) | Presentation information will be added here shortly