At the advent of the academic year, Professor Leslie N.K. Lo was appointed as Senior Research Fellow by the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University. At a presentation ceremony, Professor Zhu Xudong, the director of the Center for Teacher Education, extolled Professor Lo’s accomplishments as a teacher and researcher, and illuminated his contribution to teacher education and to educational development in China. The ceremony was attended by teachers and students of the Center. It was followed by an inaugural lecture by Professor Lo who shared insights into school improvement through the lens of university and school partnership.

           Professor Lo received his doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has worked for three decades at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he served as the founding dean of its Faculty of Education, a member of the university council and university senate, and the director of Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research. When he retired from the university last year, he was Wei Lun Chair Professor of Educational Administration and Policy.

          As a leading figure in teacher studies and school improvement in Chinese societies, Professor Lo has published numerous articles in the fields of teacher education, higher education, and comparative education. He has nurtured dozens of doctoral students who are teaching in major institutions of higher learning in China while constituting a noteworthy scholarly group for educational inquiry and development. The school improvement projects that Professor Lo initiated back in the late 1990s are now lauded as an effective force of change in schools. The impressive accumulation of grant moneys, which have amounted to over two hundred million Hong Kong dollars, serves as a testimony to the trust that schools, government agencies, and business enterprises all share in the efficacy of these projects.

          Through the years, Professor Lo has been a staunch supporter of educational development in China. Aside from serving as mentor to numerous young scholars in the field of education, Professor Lo has also played a key role in facilitating the revival of teacher education in major normal universities in China. While spearheading a massive donation endeavor for the Hong Kong industrialist and philanthropist, Mr. Tian Jiabing, he has charted a course of action that guided donations to over thirty normal universities.

        For his achievements in the field of education, Professor Lo has been appointed to honorary positions at forty universities and research academies. In 2006, he was appointed “Honorary Professor” at Beijing Normal University.