News

PRESIDENT MEETS WITH THE LOCALS TO PROMOTE ‘MODEL COMMUNITY’

In order to promote a ‘model community’ by improving traffic, food safety and the overall living circumstances for TKU students in the area around Tamsui campus, where the majority reside, President Chang Horng-jinh invited the locals to an open forum in order to discuss such issues; other topics included car parking space and housing security. The people who attended were: the Tamsui Township Mayor, Guo Zhe-dao, a former graduate of TKU accompanied by some senior police officers, speakers of local councils and 30 odd small business owners and landlords.

DID CHENG HO DISCOVER AMERICA PRIOR TO COLUMBUS?

It is well-established historically that Cheng Ho, the first maritime hero in Chinese history, went down to South Pacific and left his foot print in countries as far as the Persian Gulf and distant Africa. However, according to Dr. Wu Jing, historian and former minister of Ministry of Education, Cheng Ho had arrived at Northern American before Columbus did.

NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS HINGES UPON THE QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The Deputy Minister of Ministry of Education (MOE), Lu Mu-lin arrived at TKU on March 25 and 26 to give a speech on the future vision and competitiveness of Taiwan’s higher education in the first cross-strait conference on “Policy of Excellency at Higher Education—its review and future development” held by TKU’s Center for the Study of Higher Education. In addition, more than 200 presidents, professors and eminent scholars of various universities/colleges from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, such as National Beijing University, Xiamen University and East China Normal University from Mainland China, and National Taiwan University, Taiwan Normal University as well as TKU also joined the conference. President Chang presided over the opening ceremony whereas the Founder, Dr. Clement C. P. Chang delivered the opening speech.

POLITICIANS SHOULD TAKE PEOPLE’S WELFARE TO THEIR HEART

Politicians should care more about the real welfare that concerns everyone in the society rather than political infighting was the conclusion reached by the five scholars at the end of the forum entitled ‘Future Development of Education and Society in Taiwan’ held jointly by TKU’s Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Taiwan Association of Strategic Studies and Taiwan Association of Futures Studies at Tamkang University on March 26.

A GIFT OF BOOKS TO PROMOTE COURAGE IN FACING NEW CHALLENGES

President Chang Horng-jinh gave away more than 2000 copies of a newly published booklet entitled “Marching Toward the Fourth Wave of Tamkang University (A Summary)” to all full-time and part-time faculty members and staff. The booklet describes the fourth wave TKU will be in, in terms of its evolution as a higher educational institute once it starts recruiting students for its Lanyang Campus in 2005. In the letter enclosed with the booklet, he writes, “as we are standing in the forefront of our time, we are optimistic to the future and welcome any challenges in meeting our goals.”

UNIVERSITY OF BONN WELCOMES MORE TKU EXCHANGE STUDENTS

The Vice President of the University of Bonn, Germany, Dr. Andreas Hirner expressed his sincere wish to see building closer ties between his university and TKU in his visit, accompanied by his wife last week. The Vice President of Academic Affairs, Feng Chao-kang received them last Monday and a briefing and meeting was organized on their behalf. After the briefing, Dr. Hirner and his wife visited the Maritime Museum, Carrie Chang Fine Arts Center and Chueh-Sheng Memorial Library.

26 STUDENTS QUALIFIED FOR EARLY GRADUATION

While most seniors are still working out plans for their future, some of them know already where they are heading to…well, at least 26 of them. These 26 seniors have in fact collected their diploma as they had completed their requirements for graduation half a year earlier. Some of them have already been accepted by graduate schools, or are in the process of preparing for the entrance examination, whereas some of them have found a job, ready to enter the work force. According to the statistics compiled by the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA), this year’s figure has been the highest so far. Department of Banking and Finance (DBF) leads the chart in the number of early graduates this year—five of them in total. Other graduates come from various departments ranging from Civil Engineering (2), Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering (2), Water resource and Environmental Engineering (4) International Trade (3), Information Management (2) Business Administration (2), Electrical Engineering (1), and Chinese (2).

WOMEN BRAVE THE FRONT IN DONATING BLOOD

Has the shortage in the blood bank been resolved? Despite a three-day donation round taking blood from 864 faculty and students of TKU, there is still a short fall in the reserve in the long run. Sometimes the reserve can last only a few days, for example. Nonetheless, the Group leader of the organizer, the Wu Fu Kang Boys Scouts, Chou Chien-hong was pleased with

EVALUATION OF STUDENT ASSOCIATIONS BEGINS AT THE END OF MAY

The preparatory meeting for the evaluation of student associations was held at 11 a.m. in Room B710 of the Business & Management Building last Tuesday. In the meeting, the Chief of the Extracurricular Activities Guidance Section (EAGS), Dr. Hsieh Ching-tang assured the over 200 association/club representatives that the evaluation would confirm all the efforts the members have put in, so participating in the event could only be beneficial to the clubs. The evaluation activities will take place between May 29 and 31.

RECYCLING IS EVEYONE’S BUSINESS

April is an awareness-raising month for creating a better campus at TKU. One of the activities supporting this promotion was a quiz entitled ‘New Life in Recycling’ organized by the Guidance Section of the Office of Student Affairs, who awarded 100 lucky participants with a reusable shopping bag last Friday. Fun aside, more than 70% of the completed quiz got all the answers correctly, which shows that TKU faculty and students not only enjoy a good quiz but also take environmental issues seriously.