How Three Colleges Became One University: Chung Chi, United and New Asia and the Making of CUHK in 1963

Bottom line: The Chinese University of Hong Kong was founded on 17 October 1963 under the Fulton Report as a federal university, bringing together three existing colleges — New Asia (1949), Chung Chi (1951) and United (1956) — under one degree-granting university. The colleges kept their independent legal status; the University held the sole power to confer degrees.

Most universities start with a university, then divide into faculties or colleges. The Chinese University of Hong Kong did the reverse: three colleges, each with its own governing board and endowment, spent six years — and one report written by an Englishman — being assembled into a university. That "bottom-up" path is what gave CUHK its federal DNA, and it planted the first seed of a half-century tug-of-war between college autonomy and university centralisation. This article does not retell the founding struggles of the three colleges individually (that belongs to the comprehensive history); instead it focuses on one structural question: by what institutional engineering did three fully formed colleges become a single university?

For the three pillars of governance (Visitor / Council / Senate) and the roll of Vice-Chancellors, see Governance and Vice-Chancellors; for the institution's "firsts and superlatives", see Firsts and Superlatives; for in-depth profiles of each college, see the Colleges section. This article records only the institutional skeleton of the 1963 founding; the political struggles of the 1976 reform are, per this museum's conventions, covered in the Governance and Reform section.

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# What is a "federal university" — and why did CUHK take this path instead of starting from scratch?

At the heart of a federal university is this: the member colleges keep their independent legal status and their own character, while the university holds supreme authority over degree conferral, academic coordination and external representation. The model echoes the collegiate federations of Oxford, Cambridge and the University of London — but CUHK's federalism was not adopted for tradition's sake. It was the only realistic answer history left on the table.

To see why, look at Hong Kong's higher-education landscape in the 1950s. According to CUHK History Gallery Zone B^※, the territory had exactly one university — the University of Hong Kong, founded in 1911 and taught in English. For teachers and students whose first language was Chinese and who carried on the Chinese scholarly tradition, that door was effectively shut. Around 1949, scholars who had come south to Hong Kong set up Chinese-language colleges to fill the gap — but these private institutions faced one crippling weakness: they had no power to award government-recognised degrees. Staff and students alike sat at the margins of the system.

In theory, the three colleges faced two paths. One: dissolve their own identities, merge, and become a single new unitary university. Two: each keep its own identity, and bolt a "university" shell on top. The first path meant New Asia giving up Ch'ien Mu's ideal of a humanistic college, Chung Chi giving up its Christian tradition, and United giving up the social-science character forged from the merger of five schools — none of them was willing. The second preserved each college's character while letting them share a single, recognised university charter. Federalism was the only answer that let both sides win. That is why "federation" was never abstract institutional aesthetics: it was the product of three colleges bargaining hard and each keeping its escape route open.

# What "governance DNA" did each college bring into the merger?

The merger was complicated because the three "parties" were already three very different institutions before they sat down — different backers, different corporate structures, different educational philosophies. Lay the three strands of "governance DNA" side by side, and it becomes clear why federalism was inevitable.

Sources: New Asia College website, History^※, Chung Chi College website, Brief History^※, United College website, History^※. For the full founding saga of each college, see the comprehensive history; here we take only a cross-section of their governance forms.

United College deserves a special mention. It was itself formed in 1956 from the merger of five Guangdong private colleges, and its first Principal, who also chaired its Board of Directors, Dr F. I. Tseung, had already presided over one "multi-school amalgamation". According to the United College website^※, the catalyst for that merger was a visit to Hong Kong in early 1956 by Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University and a director of the Asia Foundation, who urged the struggling colleges to unite. In other words, United College was a rehearsal for federalism — what CUHK later did was simply to take the logic of amalgamation that United College had already walked through internally, and replay it one level up, across three colleges. Tseung, naturally, went on to become a key driver of the three-college union in the next phase.

# What assets did each college bring into the federation?

One practical reason federalism was the only workable answer is often overlooked: the three colleges' money came from entirely different pockets — and had they been forced into a single unitary institution, those external funding networks would very likely have walked away. Keeping each college's corporate identity was precisely what kept its patrons on board.

New Asia College was desperately short of funds in its early years. According to New Asia's website History^※, Ch'ien Mu travelled to Taipei to secure a grant of HK$3,000 a month (1950 figures); from 1954, Yale's Yale-in-China Association began providing financial and staff support, and the Asia Foundation, the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation followed — the college was finally able to build a permanent campus at Farm Road, Kowloon, in 1956. This network of American private foundations was one of New Asia's most solid bargaining chips in the merger negotiations.

Chung Chi College drew on the churches. According to Chung Chi's website, Brief History^※, the college was founded in 1951 by representatives of Hong Kong's Protestant churches, in succession to the thirteen Christian universities that had existed in mainland China (including Yenching and St. John's). It opened with just 63 students (1951/52 figures), holding classes in borrowed venues such as the City Hall and St. Paul's College; it was formally incorporated in 1955, and in 1956 became the first of the three colleges to move into the Ma Liu Shui valley in Shatin — in a sense, it "chose" the site of the entire future university.

United College rested on the local business community, overseas Chinese networks and the private-education tradition of the Pearl River Delta. According to United's website, History^※, it was formed in June 1956 from the merger of five Guangdong private colleges, with more than 600 students in its first year (1956/57 figures), its main campus at 147 Caine Road on Hong Kong Island. These three non-overlapping sources of funding meant none of the colleges would give up its name and corporate identity for the sake of merger — and that, financially speaking, is the bottom logic of federalism.

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# When and by whom was the seed of federalism planted?

The words "federal" and "federation" entered official documents in 1959 — four years before the founding of the University, and well before Fulton himself appeared on the scene. This thread is often skipped over, yet it is the key to understanding CUHK's origins: federalism was not Fulton's invention. The Fulton Commission's job was to confirm and implement a direction that had already been set.

Rewind to 1957. According to CUHK History Gallery Zone B^※, in that year New Asia, Chung Chi and United jointly set up the Chinese Colleges Joint Council, chaired by F. I. Tseung, then Principal of United College, with a single aim: to press the Hong Kong Government for degree-granting status and the accompanying subvention. For the first time, the three colleges spoke to the Government with one voice.

Progress came in 1958–59. The official account reads: "In 1958, the government accepted the proposal for the establishment of a Chinese university, and in the following year, officially announced its subvention to the three colleges" (quoted from CUHK's official historical statement^※). The decisive moment was June 1959: the Government enacted the Post-Secondary Colleges Ordinance, which made explicit its aim of raising the three colleges to university standard — "almost certainly on a federal basis". That was the first time "federal" appeared in an official document concerning the Chinese university.

• 1957: the three colleges form the Chinese Colleges Joint Council, chaired by F. I. Tseung, to speak to the Government as one body.
• 1958: the Government accepts the proposal to establish a Chinese university (direction set).
• June 1959: the Post-Secondary Colleges Ordinance is enacted; the official documents use the phrase "federal basis" for the first time.

In other words, by the time Sir John Fulton first visited Hong Kong in 1960, the framework was already largely in place: a federal structure, Chinese as the medium of instruction, and the three colleges as the constituent members. Fulton's role was not that of designer. He was an external validator with international credibility — his independent commission's report placed a stamp of academic soundness on a consensus the Government and the three colleges had already reached among themselves.

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# What did the Fulton Commission do? How did a 1963 report become the blueprint for the University?

The Fulton Commission was established in May 1962, chaired by Sir John Fulton, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex, with the remit of assessing whether the three government-subvented post-secondary colleges could become member colleges of a new university. Its 1963 report explicitly proposed merging the three colleges on a federal basis, and became the blueprint for CUHK's founding. That report is the document known as the Fulton Report.

According to CUHK Library's UGallery page on the founding^※, Fulton had first visited Hong Kong in 1960 in an advisory capacity. He supported Chinese as the medium of instruction, stressed the importance of academic freedom and research, and endorsed the idea of the three colleges becoming member colleges of a federal university. In 1962 he was invited back, this time to chair a formal commission. Over the summer of that year the commission examined the academic standard and university-system readiness of the three colleges, and submitted an interim report recommending the creation of a federal university composed of the three colleges.

The final report was published in April 1963. According to CUHK's digital repository^※, the document — entitled Fulton Report on a Federal Chinese University in Hong Kong — "clearly proposed a federal type of governance for the amalgamated colleges"; this official characterisation has done much to define the report's place in history. What followed was standard legislative procedure:

Sources: CUHK History Gallery Zone B^※, CUHK Library's founding page^※. From publication of the report to the birth of the University was barely six months — and that run went smoothly precisely because the groundwork had been laid between 1957 and 1959.

# Why did the Fulton Report insist on federalism rather than a unitary structure?

The Report's choice of federalism was not merely a concession to the colleges' territorial instincts; it rested on substantive educational grounds. First, each college had a stable funding network (New Asia behind Yale and the American foundations, Chung Chi behind the churches, United behind local business and overseas-Chinese networks); federalism allowed those external resources to keep flowing into the colleges rather than draining away in a forced merger. Second, Fulton himself valued what the English Wikipedia^※ entry on CUHK's founding structure describes as "small group student-oriented teaching" — and that model depends on keeping classes small, which means keeping the unit small. Fold everything into one giant unitary university and this close-knit staff–student teaching ecology would have been diluted. Federalism, in other words, was argued for not as a second-best compromise but as an educational ideal.

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# How did the 1963 Ordinance divide power? What did the University control, and what did the colleges?

Under the Chinese University of Hong Kong Ordinance, which came into effect in September 1963, the University acquired the power to confer degrees and to coordinate academic matters, and the students of the three colleges became university undergraduates; the three colleges kept their corporate status, their governing boards and their endowments, and retained considerable influence over academic departments, curricula and staff appointments. That was the actual distribution of power in the federal system at the founding — a two-tier structure in which the University held the degrees and the colleges held the teaching.

According to CUHK's newsletter article "The Chinese University of Hong Kong Ordinance, 1963"^※, once the Ordinance came into effect in September 1963, "students of Chung Chi, New Asia and United Colleges became university undergraduates". From that day, students at the three colleges — who had been unable to earn formally recognised degrees — suddenly held government-recognised student status. For ordinary staff and students, this was the most tangible meaning of the whole merger.

The initial division of powers can be mapped roughly as follows:

Sources: CUHK newsletter, "Ordinance 1963"^※; the institutional framework in its current form is set out in the Chinese University of Hong Kong Ordinance (Cap. 1109)^※. One clarification: departments and curricula sitting with the colleges describes the position at the founding; the 1976 reform (the second Fulton Report) gradually pulled teaching, personnel and financial powers back to the centre of the University. That contest belongs to the Governance and Reform section; this article does not pursue it.

# Who were the first Council Chairman and the first Vice-Chancellor? How did they make federalism work in practice?

According to CUHK Library's founding page^※, once the Ordinance took effect, Sir Cho-yiu Kwan became the first Chairman of the Council, and Dr Choh-ming Li the first Vice-Chancellor. Li, an economist from the University of California, Berkeley, was the first Chinese to head a university in Hong Kong. He insisted on a four-year curriculum (the Government at the time favoured three years) and argued for a research-led university; it was during his tenure (1963–1978) that the federal framework moved from black letter to working reality.

One transitional arrangement before the Ordinance was passed is worth recording. According to CUHK History Gallery Zone B^※ and the founding archives, after the Fulton Report was tabled in the Legislative Council in June 1963 and accepted by the Government, a Provisional Council of about twenty members was formed to handle the practical business of founding the University pending the Ordinance — drafting statutes, coordinating the three colleges' transition, preparing the degree-conferral machinery. This step mattered because putting "federalism" into practice required someone to take the three colleges' existing regulations, finances and personnel, item by item, and align them with the structure of the future university. The Provisional Council was the construction crew for this institutional assembly; by the time the Ordinance came into effect in September and the University was formally inaugurated in October, the machinery of governance had already been warmed up. Li's insistence on the four-year course also survived under this framework despite government pressure — another institutional marker distinguishing CUHK from the then three-year HKU.

On 17 October 1963, the University held its inauguration at Hong Kong City Hall. According to the CUHK newsletter^※ and CUHK Library^※, the ceremony was officiated by the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Robert Black, in his capacity as Chancellor of the University, and the text of the Ordinance was presented to him during the proceedings. With that, an institutional project begun with the Joint Council in 1957 — six years in the making — was complete: three Chinese-language colleges that had been shut out of the recognised degree system became one bilingual, research-led university standing alongside HKU.

# Which three faculties were established at the founding? How did colleges and departments coexist?

At its inception the University comprised three faculties — Arts, Science and Social Science — which laid the foundation for the present eight; the faculties and departments and the three colleges formed two overlapping structures in the early years. According to CUHK History Gallery Zone B^※ and the English Wikipedia^※, the founding established the basic framework of "bilingualism, the college system, and a flexible credit system", with the three faculties covering arts, science and social science.

Here lies the most concrete operational detail of federalism: a 1963 CUHK undergraduate belonged to two systems at once. He was a member of a college (Chung Chi, New Asia or United), enjoying its accommodation and whole-person education; and he was also registered in a department, reading courses towards a degree. In the early years, departments and curricula were, to a considerable degree, still run by the colleges — which meant the same subject might be offered in three separate versions, one per college, until later reforms gradually consolidated them into university-wide departments. This "dual membership" was the most everyday imprint federalism left on every student, and it remains a distinguishing marker between CUHK and unitary universities to this day.

Federalism also had a geography. The three colleges did not remain on separate islands; one by one they converged on the Ma Liu Shui valley in Shatin. Chung Chi moved to the valley first, in 1956; from 1969 the University progressively relocated its whole campus from the urban areas to this hillside site overlooking the sea; and the three founding colleges each ended up with its own quarter in the same hill town. The campus itself is a cartographic picture of the federation.

# How does CUHK's federalism compare with Oxford, Cambridge and the University of London?

The common ground is the basic skeleton — the colleges enjoy substantive autonomy; the university alone confers degrees. The difference is that CUHK's colleges carry a far heavier burden of whole-person and general education than their Oxbridge counterparts, and that the three founding colleges entered the federation with sharply distinct cultural lineages (humanistic / Christian / social-scientific). The "small group student-oriented teaching" (小班、以学生为本的教学) that Sir John Fulton valued at the founding was, in fact, borrowed from the British tradition of close staff–student contact in the colleges.

But the contrasts are just as clear. Oxford and Cambridge colleges are mostly named for their history, a religious foundation or a donor, and they differ far less in educational philosophy than CUHK's three founders do. The University of London's federation is looser still — its member institutions are closer to independent universities. What is distinctive about CUHK is having packed three quite different traditions of modern Chinese education — the humanistic college of scholars who came south, the legacy of the Christian universities of mainland China, and the pragmatism of the Pearl River Delta private colleges — into a single federal frame. That is both its cultural depth and the source of its governance tensions: the three colleges are not three dormitory blocks but the continued coexistence of three sets of values.

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# Why was the "inherent tension" of federalism planted on day one?

Because the two pillars of federalism — "college autonomy" and "university coordination" — were always going to fight over where exactly the line between them lies. By leaving much of the influence over departments, curricula and appointments with the colleges at the founding, the founders handed the "who decides" question to posterity. The question was answered head-on for the first time in 1976 — and the answer (centralising power in the University) ignited the fiercest protest in the institution's history.

The founding division of powers was an elegant equilibrium, but an unfinished one. The University held degrees and external representation; the colleges held the everyday texture of teaching. That worked well in the early years, when the three colleges were financially comparable and characters were strong. But as the University expanded, and as the pressure grew for unified funding and common academic standards, a question like "should one course in one university be run three times over by three colleges, or once by the University?" was always going to come to a head.

The reckoning came in 1976. According to the English Wikipedia's^※ account of the evolution of the founding structure, the second Fulton Report recommended moving teaching, personnel and financial powers from the colleges to the centre, leaving the colleges responsible for student affairs and whole-person education. This turn towards "unified management" was seen by some colleges as a betrayal of the spirit of the 1963 federalism — New Asia in particular pushed back. That struggle, which culminated in the mass resignation of a college's board members, is the key case for understanding what federalism actually means; but the full narrative of its many positions and its political context is, per this museum's conventions, reserved for the Governance and Reform section. Here we note only the structural point: the conflict of 1976 was, in essence, the bill coming due for the unstated division-of-powers contract of 1963.

In the language of the documents, the tension was already foreshadowed. In English, "amalgamation" and "federation" point to two different degrees of union: the former suggests bodies merging into one, boundaries dissolving; the latter emphasises each member keeping its autonomy and uniting only at the top level. The 1963 Fulton Report's official characterisation was "a federal type of governance for the amalgamated colleges" — one sentence containing both "federal" and "amalgamated", two words pulling in opposite directions. That juxtaposition betrayed the fact that the founders themselves had not fully resolved the question: were the three colleges being united into one university, or fused into one? That semantic ambiguity later became the textual wellspring for both sides in 1976 — centralisers read "amalgamated", autonomists read "federal".

Looking back at this founding history, CUHK's distinctiveness lies not in that it was founded in 1963, but in how — not a decree from above carving out faculties, but three colleges, each with its own assets and its own ideals, negotiating their way, under external mediation, to a "federation" from the bottom up. That lineage of "colleges first, university second" gave CUHK a cultural texture that sets it apart from HKU — and left it with a governance question it would spend decades trying to solve.

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# Frequently asked questions about the three-college merger

CUHK was founded in 1963. Does that mean the three colleges were "abolished"? No. According to the CUHK newsletter article "Ordinance 1963"^※, when the Ordinance came into effect the students of the three colleges became university undergraduates, but New Asia, Chung Chi and United were not abolished. They were retained as member colleges, keeping their corporate status and educational character to this day — which is precisely what distinguishes a federation from a merger-and-dissolution.

Why "Chinese" University? Does it teach only in Chinese? The "Chinese" in the name refers both to the medium of instruction (Chinese as the principal teaching language, as distinct from English-taught HKU) and to a cultural commitment — carrying on the Chinese scholarly and cultural tradition. According to CUHK History Gallery Zone B^※, Sir John Fulton himself supported Chinese as the medium of instruction. That said, CUHK has been a bilingual university from the start; it has never excluded English.

Are the colleges founded later (Shaw, Morningside, etc.) also "founding colleges"? No. Only New Asia, Chung Chi and United are founding colleges. Shaw College was established in 1986; Morningside and S.H. Ho in 2006; CW Chu, Wu Yee Sun and Lee Woo Sing in 2007 — all added two decades or more after the founding. When we speak of the "three-college founding", we mean specifically these three, established between 1949 and 1956.

Who wrote the Fulton Report, and why did an Englishman have the final say? The Report was written by an independent commission chaired by Sir John Fulton, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex. According to CUHK Library's founding page^※, the Hong Kong Government needed an independent assessment carrying international academic credibility, both to confirm that the three colleges had reached university standard and to endorse the federal direction. Having an external university head with no stake in local interests write it was precisely what made the "stamp" credible.

Where was the inauguration ceremony held, and who presided? According to CUHK Library's founding page^※, the inauguration on 17 October 1963 was held at Hong Kong City Hall, with the Governor, Sir Robert Black, presiding in his capacity as Chancellor; the text of the Ordinance was presented to him during the ceremony. From that day, Hong Kong had a second university — and its first research-led institution with Chinese as its principal medium of instruction, organised on a federal basis.

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