Warmest greetings to you from the youngest college at the City University of Hong Kong, a place where outstanding education is informed by strong and cutting-edge research. We operate on this proven principle of higher education to achieve our goal of becoming one of the leading establishments of veterinary education in the world. Our commitment is to train academics who can deliver solutions to the grand challenges of our time that range from immediate and urgent threats posed by pathogens to the effects of the changing climate on animals and humans.Founded in 2014, the College is comprised of four academic departments that work together to provide our students with a solid foundation in the natural and life sciences that forms the basis for the development of outstanding health professionals – in the veterinary profession and beyond.“There are no dividing lines between human and veterinary medicine – nor should there be.” Rarely has this quote of pathologist and politician Dr. Rudolf Virchow been more applicable as in these trying times when the world and each and every one of us battles an ongoing pandemic of historic proportions. The goal of advancing human, animal, and planetary health unites all of humankind in a common endeavor, and veterinary medicine, in lockstep with the life sciences, plays a pivotal role in this global effort.The College is an integral part of the university, the city and the region, and we are proud of what we do. The College will have its home in the Jockey Club One Health Tower that is under construction now in the heart of CityU, and we are equally excited about the Lam Tsuen dairy farm for which ground will be broken in September 2020. Just like the One Health Tower, our farm will serve as an important teaching and research facility, while it will also provide fresh dairy products to the people of Hong Kong.On behalf of my colleagues, I thank our strategic partner Cornell University and express my gratitude to our many friends and benefactors, personal and institutional, which make possible this daring project of establishing and maintaining a world-class College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences in Hong Kong.
