Comments at the installation of the Iota Lambda Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu at the University of Hong Kong (13 January 2012)
13 January, 2012
[These comments were made at the installation of the first Eta Kappa Nu chapter outside the United States - at the University of Hong Kong]
Ladies and Gentlemen – I address these comments to the new student members of Eta Kappa Nu. In addition to congratulating you on being invited to join Eta Kappa Nu, and on your decision to start a new Eta Kappa Nu Chapter, I would like to refer to a statement in the organization’s self description. This statement reviews the reasons that led to the founding of this honor society in 1904. It says: “although Eta Kappa Nu’s original purpose was to honor scholarship, it was noted that selecting students with the character and attitude that would make them probable leaders in the profession was even more important.” “Even more important.”
So this is not just about individual brilliance. As much as Eta Kappa Nu was created to celebrate scholarship and promote serious scholars, the character and attitude that lead to leadership of the profession, the statement says, are actually more important than that. Now, the history of the association bears this statement out. For example, if you look at the individuals whom we have honored over the years with Eta Kappa Nu awards, as students or young engineers or young faculty, you will find among them Elwyn Berlekamp who was more or less unknown when we honored him in 1971 as an outstanding young engineer, and is known widely today as one of the most important contributors to Information Theory and Combinatorial Game Theory. And we honored Constance Chang-Hasnain who became in time one of the leading contributors to Nano-structured Materials Synthesis. And we honored Ray Arthur Wang and Denice Denton and Richard Newton and Peter Maybeck and Allen Elster and many others. All of them were members of Eta Kappa Nu who were recognized and identified by us, years – often decades – before the rest of the world discovered them as well. We spotted them very early in time, and almost before all others. By the way, not all of these excelled in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering. Ray Arthur Wang, for example, is known today as a classical pianist, and for filmmaking and entrepreneurship which led him to human rights and animal rights activism. Leadership has many facets…
The challenge for you is therefore to find the internal resources and the necessary fortitude and courage to become leaders. To mobilize what you have learnt as students and members of society and apply it to improve society and to rally others to lend a hand and join you in the effort. This objective, not just good grades and good papers and the appropriate professional positions and promotions that come with them, is what membership in Eta Kappa Nu really entails.
And so... what I would like to wish you is that you become good and effective, and who knows perhaps even charismatic leaders, and that 20 or 30 years from now, we who are assembled here today, let us hope most of us who are assembled here today, would be able to say – yes; we have identified these bright and original and very famous leaders way back; in 2012; in Hong Kong; when they were very young; and they were just Electrical and Computer students then; and look where they are today and how much they have achieved and contributed.
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