◎About Tamkang University

Established in 1950 as a Junior College of English by Dr. Clement C.P. Chang and his father Mr. Ching-sheng Cheng, Tamkang was the first private institution of higher education in Taiwan, Republic of China. It was not until 1958 that Tamkang was reinstituted as a College of Arts and Sciences, and in 1980, Tamkang was elevated to the university status. Currently, Tamkang has four campuses—Tamsui Campus, Taipei Campus, Lanyang Campus, and Cyber Campus, and consists of 11 colleges, more than 28,000 students, 2,200 staff and faculty, and 220,000 alumni.

◎Management Concepts, Culture, Mission, and Vision

The management concepts of Tamkang University were formulated by Dr. Clement C.P. Chang, Founder of TKU, and all the other presidents. They gathered the opinions from students, staff and faculty, using the image of Chinese Palace-style Classrooms, carrying out the University's educational ideals regarding its mission, vision, values, strategies, and governance to build the “House of Quality” as the blueprint for all members of Tamkang to participate in its sustainable development.

Tamkang takes “carrying on the heritage and paving the way for the future, establishing a new culture for society and nurturing talents with great souls” as its missions, and “manifesting educational ideals of private schooling and creating an exquisite and prominent academic kingdom” as its visions. Accompanied by a pursuit of values of simplicity, truthfulness, firmness, perseverance, fulfillment in all five aspects of education, academic freedom and institutional autonomy, Tamkang has become an exquisite and high-quality comprehensive university. As for school development and management, Tamkang adopts “initiating wave-by-wave developments and building up four campuses,” “realizing the three dimensions and the five aspects of education and nurturing great talents,” “implementing the triple objectives and creating an academic kingdom,” “setting up the Sigmoid Curve and activating the Second Curve,” “promoting the Matthew Effect and vying for social resources,” “fully utilizing the Blue Ocean Strategy and generating competitive advantages” as its strategies, using the four management models to implement “Total Quality Management (TQM)” and “organization activation.”

◎The Process, Mode, and Achievement of Implementing TQM

Dr. Clement C.P. Chang, Founder of TKU, introduced the concept of TQM to Tamkang in 1992 to improve the management mode of the school. The process of implementing TQM in Tamkang can be divided into four stages:

1st Stage: Introduction (1993~1995)

Formulating the scheme of TQM by the leaders, establishing Educational Quality Control Committee, holding the “Total Quality Management Seminar” to carry out educational training, and expediting information management.

2nd Stage: Grounding (1995~1998)

Establishing quality control policy, asking academic and administrative units to carry out TQM according to the logical steps of “PDCA,” as well as focusing on team cooperation and participation.

3rd Stage: Development (1998~2001)

Establishing evaluation and award system to evaluate the effect of TQM and award the persons and units that promote TQM, and cultivating the culture of continuous improvement, elevation of educational quality, and customers satisfaction.

4th Stage: Improvement (after 2001)

Applying for national and international certificates related to quality management, establishing Tamkang Quality Award, pursuing excellent educational achievement, and elevating social appreciation.

◎Characteristics and Achievement of TQM in Tamkang:

1. Leadership and Management Concepts:

Tamkang is the first university that implements TQM in Taiwan. From the initiation by Dr. Clement C.P. Chang, Founder of TKU to the practices of present President Dr. Flora C.I. Chang, Tamkang has implemented TQM for 16 years. On the basis of the six key principles of TQM, including “management commitment,” “employee involvement and empowerment,” “line management,” “fact-based decision making,” “customer focus,” “continuous improvement,” the school spares no effort to foster TQM to create a high quality university.

Building a healthy and safe school as well as taking social responsibilities are part of the management concepts of Tamkang, which was not only selected as the demonstration school of the healthy and safe school by Taipei County Government, but also designated as an International Safe School, the first among the world’s universities.

2. Management Strategies:

One characteristic of Tamkang’s management strategies is to have a complete framework, which especially focuses on the management of input, process, output, and results, giving consideration to both internal and exterior customers. The quality categories that Tamkang sets up consist of “efficiency,” “productivity,” “customer satisfaction,” “financial health and sustainable management,” and “effect.”

Each year, a TQM Seminar and a Teaching and Administrative Reforms Seminar are held to enhance educational quality by continuously reviewing and reforming.

3. Research and Development, Innovation, Customers and Market Development:

The research on water resources management and policy, wind engineering, and cultural and creative industries shows Tamkang’s core competitive ability. The lab of robotics engineering won first place at the 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008 and FIRA Robot Soccer World Cup. The e-Calligraphy system developed by Tamkang is the most advanced computer writing system first invented in the world. Moreover, Tamkang recruits visually impaired students, dedicating itself to the research and development of adaptive Chinese computer systems for the visually impaired, and digitalizing the education for visually impaired, all of which manifest Tamkang’s concerns to care and serve the minority. Tamkang, thinking highly of customers’ needs, is also the first university carrying out Junior Aboard Program, and all-English-teaching courses in Lanyang Campus, displaying its intention to develop international academic cooperation. In addition, Tamkang has won in “entrepreneurs’ favorite graduates” survey done by Cheer magazine for the twelfth time, and the freshmen registration rate is higher and higher in recent years.

4. Information Strategies, Application, and Management:

Tamkang is an advanced e-university, which has constructed cheap dormitory network for students, built quick and convenient campus network, fostered multiple computer network and information security, implemented Teaching Support Platform, distance education, and administrative information system for course selection, grades management, as well as official document management. It is also the first university in Asia to adopt the service of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, and the first one in Taiwan to purchase the services of netLibrary.

◎GENERAL COMMENTS ON TAMKANG UNIVERSITY

Tamkang University was originated from Tamkang Junior College of English, established in 1950, which was elevated to the university status in 1980. Presently, Tamkang University contains 11 colleges, with a total enrollment of 28,075 students, and the number of faculty and staff members is 2,288.

1. The administrative system of Total Quality Management has been practiced for 16 years. In 2006, inspired by the concept of National Quality Award, the Tamkang Quality Award was founded to award offices and departments which have excellent TQM performances. To visualize the management objectives, the school further established the so-called “House of Quality,” which stipulates mission and vision, values, strategies, and governance as the skeletons of administrative infrastructure. Complying with such a general school, each department and college have established respective concept houses.

2. To monitor the continuous improvement of the school’s teaching quality and administrative efficiency, Tamkang University’s quality management is proceeded through a logical PDCA cycle, which has brought fruitful results.

3. The school has fully made use of the four management models—collegial, bureaucratic, political, and market models—to implement the development of administration, education, leadership, and general affairs.

4. With the belief of a non-discrimination education, Tamkang University, unprecedentedly recruited visually impaired students into the Department of Chinese as early as in the year 1969. With an effort to combine arts with latest technology, Tamkang has developed an e-calligraphy system. The university also initiated the Junior Abroad program, allowing its students to study in the sister universities. Currently, the TKU has formally signed academic cooperation agreements with 103 universities from 27 countries.

5. To enhance target model learning in better teaching, research, administration and services, the university has previously invited Joe Alexander, Dean of the Monfort College of Business and winner of the Baldrige National Quality Award to share his experience on quality teaching. In addition, TKU has regularly senior and administrative staffs to pay inspection tours in educational and administrative institutions—counting to 30 times, and about 600 peoples in the past ten years.

◎PRESIDENT’S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH AND OUTLOOK

Firstly, I would like to express gratitude to the evaluation committees of the National Quality Award for giving TKU the highest honor. The award belongs to all Tamkang faculty, staffs and students as it can show how the university, with the joint efforts, has dedicated to the continuations development in high quality management.

It has been nearly six decades since TKU was founded. The university is always implementing the triple objectives—globalization, information-oriented education and future-oriented education. As time moves on, quality management of higher education has become the core value shared by many. Therefore, in the year 1992, TKU introduced the concept of Total Quality Management, a concept widely used in the business world, into the academic world. With the TQM concept, the university has planned its future development itinerary. To achieve the goal, the school further established the so-called “House of Quality” to be the management objectives of Tamkang University.

Though the university has failed in its previous two attempts (2001, and 2007), to get the National Quality Award, the effort made by the TKU in the hope of achieving high quality standard has also won the university several honors during the past decade, making the school a model for its counterparts in the country. Some of the honors and awards won by the TKU include: ranking number one on the list of local private universities for 12 consecutive years in the “1,000 Enterprises’ Favorite College Graduates” survey, conducted by the well-known Common Wealth (Cheers) Magazine; listing as the first place in Taiwanese private universities by Webometrics 2007. Tamkang University was even designated by WHO as an International Safe School on November 18, 2008, the first among the world’s universities. In addition, TKU has won international recognitions in ISO 14001(environmental security), ISO 27001(Information Security), and ISO 20000 (Information Services and Management).

This year is the third time we have tried to apply for the award, and it is with the joint efforts of all TKU staffs that we are finally able to claim the glory. Besides feeling overwhelmed with joy, Tamkang University will continue to be a model for higher education in Taiwan by building even higher quality management mechanism, by implementing creative management skills, and by designing innovative courses to meet the demand of the students, and by uniting the resources of our alumni, to move on to build our university into a enterprises' favorite, and model university.

Winning the honor of this award is not the end but is taken as a way to implement administrative development and engender competitiveness. Thanks for the suggestions of the committees, Tamkang University will carry on its self-improvement by making use of new tactics and strategies. We hope that our efforts can serve as a standard for other universities to push their quality management and to further elevate the whole quality for Taiwan’s higher education as a whole. And that will be a even higher honor for the TKU.

President of Tamkang University

Flora Chia-I Chang