Founding President David Johns and the Early Years — The Beginning of CityU's Leadership Lineage

Module: 06 People · Sub-file: The Founding Director and the Early Leadership Lineage Note on conventions: David Johns (1931–2019) and Patrick Cheng Yiu-chung (b. 1939) are both retired historical figures, and all facts concerning them are supported by published sources; in keeping with this archive's rules, they are named in full. For President Way Kuo (4th President), see ./fourth-president-reliability-scholar.md; for an overview of the academic credentials of successive presidents, see ./faculty-and-leaders.md.

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In one sentence: David Johns (庄贤智, 1931–2019) was the founding director of the then City Polytechnic of Hong Kong (now City University) and the institution's very first employee^※; appointed in 1983, he oversaw the first intake in 1984 (about 480 full-time and 680 part-time students)^※, and by the time he stepped down in 1989 enrolment had reached 9,000^※. His successor, Patrick Cheng Yiu-chung (1989–1996), steered the polytechnic through its elevation to university status — and with that, CityU's leadership lineage was born.

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# Why did the City Polytechnic come into being?

The origins of City University of Hong Kong lie in the public calls of the late 1970s for a "second polytechnic". In 1982, Executive Council member Sir S. Y. Chung publicly stated that a social consensus had formed in favour of building another polytechnic of a scale comparable to the Hong Kong Polytechnic^※. The government then set about finding a site, eventually settling on a new wing at Argyle Street in Mong Kok (Block 2 of the Argyle Street Commercial Centre) as temporary premises, rather than candidates such as Tsuen Wan or Tuen Mun.

The City Polytechnic of Hong Kong was formally established by the government in 1983^※ and brought within the funding framework of the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee (UPGC, predecessor of today's UGC). On 8 October 1984 the Polytechnic formally opened, admitting about 480 full-time and 680 part-time students, with its name chosen from nearly 300 public suggestions^※. By then David Johns had already been in post for a full year, waiting for the institution he had built from scratch to welcome its first students.

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# Who was David Johns, and where did he come from?

David Johns (Chinese name 庄贤智) was born in England on 29 April 1931 and died on 18 September 2019 in Harrogate, aged 88^※. His academic foundations were in aeronautical engineering: he served a five-year apprenticeship with the Bristol Aeroplane Company and earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Bristol University, before becoming a lecturer at the Cranfield College of Aeronautics^※. His early research spanned supersonic aircraft structures (the "Bloodhound" project, which reached Mach 2) and naval weapons systems, and later extended to thermoelasticity and the mechanics of shell structures.

In 1964 he moved to Loughborough University, rising through the ranks to become Professor of Aeronautical Engineering (1968), Head of the Department of Transport Technology (1972–1982), Dean of Engineering (1975–1978) and finally Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor in 1982–83^※. He held a PhD (1967, Loughborough) and a Doctor of Science (DSc, 1985, Loughborough)^※, together with fellowship of several professional bodies, including the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS) and the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng).

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# Building an institution from zero: Johns's six years in Hong Kong

In 1983 Johns successfully competed for the post of Foundation Director of the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, taking up the role as the institution's "first employee"^※ — at a time when the Polytechnic had no courses, no staff and nothing on the ground; everything had to be built from nothing. This was a rare "blank slate" situation in the history of Hong Kong higher education: the founding director had not only to devise the curriculum framework, but also to recruit staff, oversee the temporary premises and simultaneously steer the planning of the future permanent campus.

Johns recalled on his personal website: "In 1983 I was appointed as the Foundation Director of the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, and within a year I had organised the recruitment of the first batch of around 1,000 students."^※ In addition, he oversaw the design and construction supervision of the permanent campus at Kowloon Tong, into which the institution later moved. During his tenure the Governor appointed him to a number of government advisory bodies, including the Hong Kong Examinations Authority, the Vocational Training Council, the Productivity Council and the Environmental Pollution Advisory Committee^※ — a mark of the standing he enjoyed in Hong Kong's education and public policy circles.

By the time Johns left Hong Kong in 1989, the City Polytechnic had 9,000 students^※ — compared with around 1,160 in its first year (480 full-time plus 680 part-time) in 1984, enrolment had grown more than sevenfold in six years. That growth was achieved under severe constraints of time and resources, and it laid the institutional foundation for CityU's later rapid expansion.

After leaving Hong Kong, Johns took up the vice-chancellorship of the University of Bradford (1989–1998)^※, continuing his career in higher-education administration, and was appointed CBE in 1998 "for services to higher education"^※.

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# The statutory framework and the permanent Kowloon Tong campus: planned by Johns, delivered by Cheng

The title "Foundation Director" was no ornament; it was a substantive office anchored in legislation. The City Polytechnic of Hong Kong Ordinance (Cap. 1132) came into effect on 1 January 1984, establishing a Council, an Academic Board and the post of "Director" as chief administrative officer, with the Governor serving as President and retaining supervisory authority over the institution^※. The role Johns was hired into was precisely this statutory "Director" — he was both the first employee and the first chief administrator to hold office under the Ordinance.

The choice of site and design for the permanent campus was likewise settled during Johns's tenure, though construction only finished after he had left. The Polytechnic eventually selected a plot at Kowloon Tong on land formerly occupied by the village of Chu Koo Chai for its permanent campus, with the building contract going to Percy Thomas Partnership in association with Alan Fitch and W. N. Chung (the firm of architect Chang Hua-nan)^※; the firm's campus drawings survive to this day in the architectural archives of Hong Kong's M+ museum^※. The project was originally due to open in October 1988, but was in the event delayed:

Thus, when Johns left Hong Kong in July 1989, the Phase I permanent campus had yet to open — by the time Governor Sir David Wilson officiated at the opening ceremony (15 January 1990), his successor Patrick Cheng had already been in post for six months^※. In other words, Johns drew up the blueprints and oversaw the start of construction, while Cheng inherited the task of completion and commissioning — the two founding directors forming, on the physical infrastructure front, a neat relay of "designer" and "deliverer". The Polytechnic's law school was also established during Johns's tenure, in 1987^※, making it the second institution in Hong Kong to offer undergraduate legal education; it moved into Kowloon Tong with the permanent campus at an early stage. For the subsequent public-service careers of these law alumni, see ./alumni-in-politics-and-public-service.md.

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# The leadership lineage at a glance

The following table sets out the tenures of all substantive heads of the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong / City University of Hong Kong (excluding acting appointments), for ease of comparison across the lineage:

Source: List of vice-chancellors and presidents of Hong Kong tertiary institutions (Chinese Wikipedia)^※; Yiu-Chung Cheng (English Wikipedia)^※.

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# Patrick Cheng: carrying on the founding work, completing the elevation

Patrick Cheng Yiu-chung (Chinese full name 鄭耀宗) was born on 9 February 1939^※; a physicist, materials scientist and electronics engineer, he was later elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences^※, making him a chief administrator of considerable scholarly standing in Hong Kong higher education. He is an alumnus of the University of Hong Kong, having studied in HKU's Faculty of Science and later worked there for several years, giving him deep ties to the institution^※.

His academic career was rooted in microelectronics: he received his BSc from HKU in 1963, then studied for an MSc in physics at California State University, Long Beach (1963–1964), before moving to the University of British Columbia in Canada for a PhD in physics (1964–1967)^※. His lifelong focus was on the device physics and process technology of metal–oxide–silicon (MOS) systems: he invented the HCI (hydrogen chloride) oxidation technique for silicon, was the first internationally to propose the theory of surface-roughness scattering of carriers in MOS inversion layers, and was among the earliest scholars to work on silicon nitride technology; he was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999^※. His academic weight and Johns's aeronautical engineering background make for an instructive contrast between the disciplinary orientations of the two founding directors; the depth of their respective fields can be read against the CityU tradition of "building the institution on outstanding scholars" described in ./faculty-and-leaders.md.

On 1 August 1989 Cheng succeeded Johns as Director of the City Polytechnic^※, and immediately faced two core tasks: first, to expand the institution further from its base of some 9,000 students; second, to push for the polytechnic's elevation to university status — part of the Hong Kong government's broader "expansion of higher education" policy of the time. During his tenure he devoted considerable effort to developing the Department of Electronic Engineering and oversaw the completion of the Phase II permanent campus buildings^※. In 1994 the City Polytechnic was formally elevated and renamed City University of Hong Kong, with a Senate established as the University's supreme academic body responsible for determining and revising academic policy^※ — a watershed transformation in the institution's tenth year.

In an interview with the Chinese University of Hong Kong's student newspaper^※, Cheng said that during his roughly six years at City he expanded the student body from some 3,000–4,000 to about 20,000 (across full-time, part-time and sandwich programmes); he also candidly acknowledged that the University remained deficient in "whole-person education" and in raising language standards. On 12 March 1996 he tendered his resignation, citing his move to the University of Hong Kong^※, and his successor H. K. Chang led the University into its next phase. Cheng went on to serve as Vice-Chancellor and President of HKU (13 March 1996 – 6 September 2000)^※, holding a CBE and a JP; his tenure there saw reforms including the replacement of tenure with contract appointments and the introduction of a credit-unit system, before he resigned in 2000 in the wake of a controversy over academic freedom arising from a public-opinion survey^※, drawing his administrative career to a close.

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# The founding institutional identity: a "career-oriented polytechnic" or a "whole-person university"?

Hong Kong higher education in the early 1980s was dominated by an acute shortage of degree places — university degrees were extremely scarce, while polytechnic education was seen as the practical, commerce-and-industry route. The City Polytechnic was positioned as a career-oriented, technology-focused institution^※, admitting large numbers of part-time students to serve people already in work, on a path similar to that of the Hong Kong Polytechnic. Under Johns, the curriculum was built around professional disciplines such as engineering, business and design, keyed to the practical manpower needs of the local economy.

This founding orientation stands in clear historical contrast to the "university transformation" pursued by Cheng in the 1990s and by successive presidents thereafter. After elevation to university status, CityU progressively added a Faculty of Science and courses in the humanities and social sciences, and research output rose sharply. Cheng himself conceded that the polytechnic heritage left CityU with an innate deficiency in "whole-person education" that needed to be made up after the transition^※. This trajectory — practicality first, research second — has profoundly shaped the University's disciplinary landscape and institutional character, and its imprint is still visible in the continued strength of engineering and business.

That evolutionary path is not an abstraction; it is most clearly seen in the establishment of specific departments. During Johns's tenure the law school was founded in 1987^※, serving the preparations of the then British Hong Kong government to localise the judiciary and the civil service in the run-up to the handover, and has since produced a succession of Secretaries for Justice, Deputy Secretaries for Justice and Legislative Council members (see ./notable-alumni.md). Cheng's tenure, by contrast, emphasised the expansion of electronic engineering, mirroring his own background in MOS device physics. For an institution that began as a school of applied disciplines, course expansion tends first to follow immediate social demand (law, engineering, business) and only later to add the general-education and basic-science foundations expected of a research university — and CityU's disciplinary terrain still bears the marks of that founding history.

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# How should David Johns's historical contribution be assessed?

On the basis of the public record, Johns holds an irreplaceable "founder" position in CityU's history, for three reasons.

First, the unique rarity of being the institution's first employee. At the time of his appointment the Polytechnic had no physical existence whatsoever; he had to build the administration, the academic staff, the temporary premises and the permanent campus blueprint from zero, with high risk and almost no precedents to draw on. In an unfamiliar environment, as a foreign scholar, he shouldered the whole enterprise alone and grew enrolment from 0 to 9,000 students (1989)^※ in six years.

Second, his departure was itself a form of institutional continuity. In 1989 he moved to the vice-chancellorship of the University of Bradford^※, with his Hong Kong post taken up by Cheng; and his CBE in 1998 "for services to higher education"^※ confirmed that his contribution to the British education system was equally highly regarded. This dual-track career — founding an institution in Hong Kong, running one in Britain — is quite unusual among British educators of his generation.

Third, his engineering background shaped the curriculum character of CityU's founding period. As a specialist in aeronautical and structural engineering, Johns had a deep understanding of technology-oriented institutions, which fitted closely with the City Polytechnic's early positioning, centred on engineering and vocational education.

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# Summary

• The predecessor of City University of Hong Kong, the City Polytechnic, was established under the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong Ordinance (Cap. 1132, in force from 1 January 1984)^※ and formally opened on 8 October 1984^※ with a first intake of about 1,160 students (480 full-time, 680 part-time).
• Founding director David Johns (庄贤智, 1931–2019^※) was a British aeronautical engineer who joined in 1983 as Foundation Director, the institution's very first employee^※; by the time he stepped down in 1989 enrolment had reached 9,000^※.
• The permanent Kowloon Tong campus was designed and settled under Johns's tenure; Phase I was opened only on 15 January 1990 by Governor Sir David Wilson^※, with Phase II completed in 1993 — a concrete witness to the "designer–deliverer" relay between the two founding directors.
• Successor Patrick Cheng Yiu-chung (鄭耀宗, 1989–1996^※) led the 1994 elevation to university status^※ and expanded the student body to around 20,000^※, laying the foundations of today's CityU.
• The CityU leadership lineage now extends to a fifth president; the full succession is set out in the table above. The law school (founded 1987) and the expansion of electronic engineering are the most tangible traces this founding history has left on today's disciplinary landscape.

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