【Reported by Zhuo Qi, Tamkang Times】The new year break has come to an end and all of the teachers and students have returned. In order to give a blessing to the new year while adjusting to the first day back at work, Tamsui, Taipei and Lanyang Campuses jointly held the New Spring Tea Party at 1 in the afternoon. Everyone offered their best wishes to each other at the tea party and President Flora Chia-I Chang gave a speech as she presented guests with gifts.

The room was decorated with red and golden trim along with pictures representing the year of the ram. President Chang mentioned future projects and undertakings including the establishment of the Feature Center in July and plans for services in 2016. This included funding of 50,000,000 NT for the year 2015 provided by the Ministry of Education to support TKU’s Spirit of Excellence Program. She also made announcements of preparations regarding the 66th Anniversary of TKU, academic planning, international exchange programs, publications, art, physical education and other special events. In closing she used Chinese idioms to express the different qualities of the ram and what it means for this year. President Chang stated, “The ram must be low key and wary of many different dangers, but it has always been a symbol of peace, kindness and fairness.” She stated that the spirit of the ram is what must be utilized within TKU’s Three Circles and Five Disciplines educational concept in order to cultivate the spirit of excellence in each student.