News

“TEMPERED BY FIRE” EPITOMIZES THE SPIRIT OF THE KENDO CLUB

The fire burned down all the offices, yet the friendship among members of Kendo Club has remained strong. The Tamkang Kendo Association, a club comprised by Tamkang alumni, donated 16 suits of kendo armor, valued more than NT$200,000, to the Kendo Club. They put their support into action.

FIRE ACCIDENT SPEEDS DIGITALIZATION

The burning of the old student association/club offices in early August caused a big loss for all student associations/clubs. Lost equipment can be purchased again, but lost data is unrecoverable. After this accident, they decided to keep their data in digital format and save them on disk and computer in case such a similar loss occurs again.

47 NEW PROFESSORS JOIN TKU

The Seminar for New Teachers of the 2003 Academic Year was held on September 12, 2003, at Ching-sheng International Conference Hall. Dr. Clement C. P. Chang, Founder of Tamkang University, welcomed the 47 new professors to join the TKU family, and he encouraged them to immerse themselves in TKU's culture and engage in research. President of TKU, Dr. Horng-jiuh Chang, in the opening address, added: “We hope our new colleagues will familiarize themselves with the campus as soon as possible. TKU treasures the prestige of academic research and gives grants and credit to those who actively engage in it.”

FACULTY INFORMATION DATABASE ACCESSIBLE

The TKU Faculty Information Database has been accessible since September 20 this semester. It is to be evaluated and renewed toward the end of the semester. Dr. Flora Chang, vice president of Administrative Affairs, expressed her satisfaction and appreciation for the success of this project.

YUEH WANG AND OTHERS RECEIVE DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR AWARDS

Distinguished Professor Awards (DPA) were announced several days ago, and eleven received the medals of honor and prize money of NT$100,000. This is the last time that awarded professors will receive prize money, since new parameters for award giving have already been passed.

MOE ANNOUNCES EVALUATION OF UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS:

The Ministry of Education announced the results of the evaluation of the university development projects in the 2001-2002 academic year on July 10, 2003. TKU was listed as the best in five of the seven items in the first group of universities, and was granted two hundred and twenty-one million dollars of government subsidy, the largest among private universities, in the 2002-2003 academic year.

MORE STUDENT DROPPING OUT FROM SCHOOL LAST SEMESTER

There were 369 students who dropped out of school last semester (2003, Spring) because they failed half of their courses (or two-thirds of their courses for overseas Chinese students) in two successive semesters. Compared with the number in the previous semester (2002, Summer), it increased 95 persons; and compared with the same period last year (2002, Spring) it creased 44 persons. The numbers of dropout students for this semester was the highest in the past three years.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS OF TKU, TS’AO YING-WEI,

Distinguished alumnus, Mr. Ts’ao Ying-wei, President of Linksys Company, has been invited to the school to give a speech, sharing his experience in establishing Linksys Company, on this Wednesday (September 24, 2003). He graduated from the Department of Computer Science in 1975.

COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE SPONSORED THE TAIPEI INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL 2003

“Welcome to this afternoon’s art banquet”, remarked Prof. Sung Mei-hua, Dean of College of Foreign Languages and Literature, as she chaired the opening of the campus lectures of the Taipei International Poetry Festival 2003. The Festival of “Dreams Nesting in the Poetry-Reading City” invited many well-known poets at home and abroad to meet for an exchange of poetry and language. The campus lectures of the Festival were held in the Ching-sheng Memorial Hall on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of September.

ISO14001 FIRST AUDIT AND SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

The first audit of TKU’s IS014001 Environmental Management System (EMS) was held last Thursday to assess environmental protection regulations and environmental aspects. The two external auditors from SGS, Messrs Lu Jing-shing and Hsien Jen-cheng, also inspected a few departments and made suggestions for improvement. Vice President for Administrative Affairs, Dr Flora C. I. Chang, announced at the closing meeting of the first audit that further training would be offered to all the staff and students of the University.