The flame trees are flaming everywhere on TKU campus where more than 7000 graduates, including those from Lanyang Campus, with the blessings of faculty and students, are about to soar to great heights after The Parting Song. The 2009 graduation ceremony officially begins at Shao-mo Memorial Gymnasium today (June 13) at 10:00 am. The graduation theme this year is “The Most Authentic TKU—Qualities Guaranteed,” and we hope that with the affirmation of TKU’s winning of the NQ Award, all graduates will stride bravely forward in their new life journey.
All graduates begin the Campus Parade as the prologue of the official ceremony, starting from the Student Activity Center, through Poster Street to the Fu Yuan Japanese Garden finally arrive at Five-Tiger Steps where they are welcomed by TKU Founder Clement C. P. Chang, President Flora C. I. Chang and faculty members in a row. President Chang chairs the Ceremony, and both Founder Chang and the General Director of TKU Alumni Association, ROC, Ching-nan Chen deliver a speech. The valedictory speeches are delivered by Mass Communication senior Bei-yu Chen, Information and Communication seniors Hsin-hua Chao and Hsin-yi Cheng who take faculty and students to nostalgic aftertastes of the most memorial moments of their four years of TKU life. When “The Parting Song” starts, the TKU Chorus will lead the graduates to sing it together with full blessings.
The Graduation Site reserves 700 seats for students’ parents to attend the ceremony. The Site is open from 8:50 to 9:50 a.m. for parents until all the 700 seats are taken. These who can’t have a seat inside can watch the Ceremony live through the cyber and network channels in the Resting Areas on the 1st floor and 3rd floor of the Gym and in 7 classrooms as well. On the left side of the entrance of the 3rd floor, there is an Information Desk to comprehensively serve parents. There are free maps of the campus for first-time visiting parents, and the Information Desk also provides parents with specific information of different departments’ graduation ceremonies afterwards.
Among the graduates this year, the English graduate Jun-ching Chen owns 5 degrees in 4 different disciplines. Except his Bachelor’s Degrees in Statistics and English from TKU, he also has a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Management from Hsinpu Institute of Technology (Now St. John’s University), another Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and a Master’s Degree in Accounting from Chengchi University. He said, “Returning to the Alma Mater, I have felt TKU’s continuing progress in highly professional faculty member recruitment and the unceasing development in both software and hardware constructions. Thanks to Assistant Professors Hui-chuan Wang and Dean X. Wang, whose strict academic requirements and teaching have enormously helped my studies.” ( ~Dean X. Wang )
