“Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. We are what we chose to be”
-Graham Brown
I am currently tenured as an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau (UM), specializing in public management and institutional analysis. In addition to my academic role, I serve as the Assistant Dean for Professional Education and Institutional Advancement in the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS). Concurrently, I direct the Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) program. Before joining UM, I held a position as an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the Department of Public and International Affairs, previously known as the Department of Public Policy, at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). My academic journey includes earning a Ph.D. in public policy and management from the University of Southern California (USC). I also completed my master’s degree in public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and my bachelor’s degree in mass communication and journalism at Shenzhen University (SZU).
My family background has played the most important role in shaping my career goals. I grew up in a family of scholars. My grandfather was a professor at a prestigious university in China, and my father also obtained a teaching position during his tenure as a Ph.D. student in Accounting. Although this type of family seems to be commonplace today, it was a rare phenomenon in the 1980s given the extreme scarcity of educational resources in China at the time.
Raised as the only child in this family, I was endowed with tremendous hope and wishful thoughts from my family members. Education, in this respect, was stressed as the highest priority. Hence, even when I was in elementary school, I was often asked by my parents to invite multiple classmates into my house to read books with me as a team. In retrospect, despite the fact that I have now forgotten the concrete contents that my study partners and I collectively reviewed, I still remember how my classmates were amazed by the endless shelves of books all throughout our house. Gradually, as I got older, it became one of my passions to read constantly. I believe everyone has had a similar feeling of how our accomplishments pale in comparison when we read a literary masterpiece. We admire the authors’ knowledge, their unique perspective on life and hope one day we could be as intelligent and successful as they are.
Although my dreams of a scholastic profession were hazy at that time, I believe my love for study later inspired me to pursue an academic career and to absorb more knowledge in the ivory tower. Along with my nonmaterialistic goal of contributing further to the intellectual development of society, I also find myself intrinsically craving opportunities to transmit knowledge and help students whenever they encounter difficulties and need a receptive listener and/or an empathetic problem-solver. Since I have often fancied standing at the podium in a lecture hall at a top-notch university sharing my knowledge and experience with enthralled students, starting my professorship journey at CityU is indeed a dream come true.
Bo Wen 