Fall 1995, I came to Hong Kong on a leave from University of Connecticut where I was a tenured associate professor of communication sciences. At the time, three local universities invited me. I chose City University because there was a need to develop a "new" MA program in communication.

At the beginning, there were divergent views of what "new" program we wanted. After long debates, we settled on "new media," largely following a similar program that I helped create at University of Connecticut in early 1990s and became instant popular in the U.S. The past four years of MACNM have again proven the attraction of this approach.

A banner in the first version of our MACNM website perhaps says all about my vision and hopes: HTTP://Home of Theory and Technology Program. I often told students of MACNM that we don't train computer programmers or graphic designers. Instead, we train leaders of new media projects who are equally well vested in the two Ts: Theory and Technology.

Like my colleagues in the team, I am both a theorist and a technologist. I teach Communication Fundamentals, which is a theory course on the diffusion, use, and impact of new media. I also teach Communication Database, which is the last course in our technology sequence, covering interactive web development. On the side, I am statistician and occasional programmer.