News

DEPT. OF CHEMISTRY HOLDS GRADUATION EXHIBITION

It’s graduation time. With this year’s 50th anniversary of the Department of Chemistry, they decided to have a different graduation celebration. They organized a graduation exhibition displaying theses from graduate students and graduation projects f...

BIG STOMACHES WOLF DOWN 11 BOWLS OF RICE IN SEVEN MIN.

An event celebrating the joy of wolfing down food in the shortest possible time was held at Lanyang Campus on June 3. Over 70 people registered to compete to be crowned as the king or queen of big stomach. After seven minutes of shoving and gorging, Shen Ping-shiung and Liang Chung-ming from the Department of Information and Communications Technology Management won the King of Big Stomach title by wolfing down 11 bowls of pork meat rice. Chou Wan-lian and Wu Zhi-shuan from the Department of Global Politics and Economic shared the Queen of Big Stomach trophy with 9 bowls of rice down their throat.

24TH WU-FU KANG LITERATURE AWARDS ANNOUNCES ITS WINNERS

The results of the 24th Wu-Fu Kang Literature Awards were announced the other day. The award ceremony was held at L522 on June 12, handing out certificates and prize money to winners of Fiction, Poetry, and Prose categories. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, all winners are affiliated with the Department of Chinese (DC) one way or another.

DOMINO TOPPLING MAKES RECORD AT TKU

How many dominoes can you topple in one go? The current world record is 4,002,146 dominoes! In comparison, the 65,000 dominoes that were toppled at TKU on June 2 was a piece of cake. Nonetheless, it was a feat for TKU who in fact beat Feng-chia University, the previous record holder in Taiwan’s collegiate league (their record was approx. 40,000 dominoes). TKU could have done better had it not been for the earthquake that shook many people out of their sleep the night before, which also toppled some dominoes! This event was organized by the Extracurricular Activities Guidance Section (EAGS) and the venue of the domino extravaganza was held in front of the Shiao Mo Gymnasium. With no pun intended, the name of the event was “Domino Toppling TKU”.

TKU MAKES HEADWAY WITH STUDENT SUPERVISION

Timing appears to be the key to successful counseling work rendered to college freshmen. According to research in higher education in Taiwan in recent years, all freshmen go through a critical period that usually falls between the second and the sixth week of the first semester of their college life. It is a make or break period, as statistics show that those who dropped out, suspended, or transferred to another university later already demonstrated signs of strain or unhappiness to their new environment in the first six weeks of college. Hence, student advisers, be it a faculty member or counselor should know how to look out for those signs at the right moment. In light of this, a seminar devoting to this issue will be held at the beginning of next semester to relevant staff and faculty members to enhance supervision skills. On top of this seminar, a series of workshops, real and virtual, organized by the Center for Learning and Teaching will be launched to help new students adjust to challenging environment.

AIT THANKS TKU FOR ITS CONTRIBUTION TO SHEDDING LIGHT ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS

EXCHANGE PROGRAM KICKDED STARTED WITH MANAGEMENT COLLEGE IN CHINA

The College of Management is the first institute in TKU to begin an exchange program at the graduate level with an institute in China, namely, the School of Management of Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (MUCAS) situated in Beijing. Over 30 MBA students from both sides will partake in seminars held in TKU and MUCAS in June and July. Students from MUCAS will arrive at TKU first on June 17 to attend an 18 day course. Following this, TKU students will travel with them back to Beijing on July 6 for more classes. All classes deal with practical issues of managing and running business in both areas.

SOME SHAKE-UP WITH TKU STRUCTURE

In order to reflect market needs and improve the quality of teaching, TKU had decided to restructure some of its departments and institutes. These new changes were approved at the 59th meeting for university affairs that was held in June, and they would be presented to MOE on June 30 for final approval. Once that is done, the new organization will become effective from 2009 academic year onward.

MOE TEACHING FOR EXCELLENCE PROJECTS REVIEW IS UNDER WAY

The on-site review of the Teaching for Excellence projects initiated by the Ministry of Education (MOE) was kicked off with a briefing at the Chueh Sheng International Conference Hall on June 3. Members on the Review Committee were Huang Kuang Chung, the former Director of the National Central Library and Center for Chinese Studies, Chou Yi-herng, the Vice President of National Sun Yat-Sen University, Chen Sun-tien, the former president of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Liu Ah-rong, the Dean for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of Yuan-Ze University, and Chiang Wei-ning, the stand-in President of National Central University.

OVER 80% EMPLOYERS PRAISE THE TEAM SPIRIT OF TKU GRADUATES

Results of two surveys conducted by the Office of Alumni Services and Resources Development have been released to provide a glimpse to the employment situation of TKU graduates in the past few years. One survey investigates the employment rates of 2007 graduates and it was found that nearly half of the graduates (46.4%) were employed at the time of the survey (March, 2008)--a slight rise from the figure of 2006. Among those who were not employed, 83.5% of them were in fact in further studies or serving in the military (for male graduates). Graduates that had found work upon graduation but left to become unemployed at the time of survey put down their reasons as “no interest”, “want to have more time to prepare for national exams or relevant professional certifications”.