15 members of Waseda University, including teachers and students, who engaged in the integrated Distance Education programs between TKU and Waseda University, visited our school last Wednesday (March 5). This is their first visit to exchange opinions and experience in real place since the signing of contract three years ago. Kuo Shu-min, secretary of Office of International Exchange & International Education, indicates that Distance Education Development Section organizes this communicational event for all TKU students who attend the integrated Distance Education programs have a face to face contact with teachers and students of Waseda University.

Waseda University has cooperated with Tamsui campus and Lanyang Campus of TKU in opening five distance educational courses. Last year they had proposed to visit TKU to experience the real environment on the other side of the web. The first activity on the first day of the event was the course, “English Oral Expression,” co-hosted by Dr. Hwei-mei Chen, Director of Office of International Exchange & International Education, and Dr. Yi-ti Lin. Arafune Shuichiro, student of Dept. of Law, Waseda University, was impressed by the activeness of TKU students and expressed, “I am glad to be present on the other side of the monitor. This visit makes my learning more three-dimensional.”

In addition to observe and attend classes with TKU students, they were guided to visit Carrie Chang Fine Arts Center, Maritime Museum, Chueh-sheng Memorial Library, and Tamsui Old Street. On the second day, they visited Lanyang campus, and attended two distance education classes, “Management,” and “Cross-Cultural Learning,” where they met their web-classmates face to face and discussed together. Dr. Feng Chao-kang, former Vice President for Academic Affairs, who serves as an exchange professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Waseda University, flied back to Tamkang to receive the Japanese visitors. ( ~Chen Chi-szu )