College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences - City University of Hong Kong

The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is a well-rounded hub that encompasses education, research and innovation of two broad subject areas - humanities and social sciences.

Strengths and Hallmarks

Emphasising interdisciplinary education, CLASS prides itself on transferring its academic outputs to emerging interdisciplinary realms, such as one health, digital society, smart city and brain, and grooming young professionals who can offer the world solutions beyond individual disciplines.

As global awareness is also one of the College’s features, CLASS strides to boost robust connections and collaborations between institutes worldwide. At CLASS, students and scholars will harness their research-led knowledge and multicultural competence to tackle real-life challenges, embrace the ever-changing world and make a positive impact regionally, nationally and globally.

Here are some facts and figures demonstrating the College’s edge and achievements to offer a glimpse of the promising journey of discovery, transformation and growth at CLASS.

• Two subjects ranked in the top 50 in QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023
  • Linguistics
  • Social Policy and Administration
• Public Administration ranked 38^th in the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2022 (1^st in HK, 2^nd in Asia)

Motivational Vision and Missions

CLASS aspires to become a leading global college, excelling in research and professional education in the humanities and social sciences. In delivering its teaching, learning and research activities, CLASS always sees the purposes that underpin them, so it has been assiduously marching toward the following goals:

• To foster academic and professional exchanges in humanities and social sciences, cultivating transformative learning experiences and pedagogical innovations;
• To understand and explore the humanistic perspectives on science and technology advancement through impactful interdisciplinary research responding to the unprecedented challenges in the global society;
• To nurture innovators and influencers who will make a positive difference in the world to create a sustainable future.

The Multitude of Scholarly Wisdom

Abounding with the diversity of disciplines, CLASS is home to seven academic units, namely:

• Department of Chinese and History
• Department of English
• Department of Linguistics and Translation
• Department of Media and Communication
• Department of Public and International Affairs
• Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Chan Feng Men-ling Chan Shuk-lin Language Centre

Connect with CLASS

As CLASS embraces the connection with different stakeholders, it has been publishing the CITY CLASS magazine since 2015. It offers a snapshot of teaching, research, knowledge transfer, student activities, learning experiences and university life at CLASS.

Stay in touch with CLASS on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

CLASS values the whole-person development of tomorrow’s talent through well-rounded and broad-based professional education. It offers a wide range of degree programmes, including:

• Undergraduate programmes,
• Taught postgraduate programmes,
• Research degree programmes,
• Joint degree programmes with other world-renowned universities

CLASS is dedicated to unleashing students’ potential and ambitions with a plethora of learning experiences, such as multiple study pathways, international exposure, scholarships, career tasters and all sorts of eye-openers available at CLASS and CityU.

Research-led education is at the heart of CLASS. To motivate undergraduate students’ engagement and exploration in faculty-led research projects, CLASS spearheads the Research Volunteer Scheme, further enhancing students’ readiness and capacity in their academic journey.

With the abundance of study options, CLASS students will enjoy the flexibility that unprecedentedly opens up more possibilities and paves the way for success in their studies, careers and life alike.

As a leading centre for studying humanities and social sciences, CLASS is at the forefront of research excellence, earning international recognition in academia globally and locally.

Synergistic Research Clusters

CLASS understands that real-life issues are intricate and call for experts from various areas nowadays. It generates the synergy and collective insights of faculty via the overarching Research Clusters. As put forward by CityU, the Research Clusters gather scholars across disciplines to probe into and tackle the problems. Developing the College’s focus around humanistic perspectives on science and technology, it has a lot of interdisciplinary collaborations with diverse teams of humanists, social scientists, scientists, and engineers, etc. Currently, CLASS contributes to the following clusters:

• One Health
• Digital Society
• Smart City
• Brain

CLASS Advanced Methods School (CAMS)

To address researchers’ surging demand and foster interdisciplinary collaborations in today’s academia, CLASS has established the CLASS Advanced Methods School (CAMS) as an avenue to equip researchers and students at CLASS and beyond with conceptual and technical competency deemed essential for theoretical and empirical inquiries.

Gathering scholars and speakers from around the world, CAMS sets forth good examples of scholastic excellence and stimulates insightful ideas on advanced research methods for young researchers and students at CLASS.

CLASS Labs

Nevertheless, the discovery of new knowledge does not confine to individual disciplines. Bringing together its six research centres and 12 education and research labs under the academic units, CLASS has established an interdisciplinary research body, the CLASS Labs.

As an idea incubator, CLASS Labs create numerous opportunities for undergraduates, taught and research postgraduate students and faculty to utilise advanced technologies and information and communication technologies to develop brand-new and innovative pedagogies.

Making a Positive Impact

Instead of investigating issues in an ivory tower, CLASS strives to make a positive impact on the world through research and innovation. Therefore, its scholarly outputs are dynamically transformed into practical knowledge and wisdom. An array of articles and videos showcase how its research changes lives on the CLASS Research Website.