Seven seniors from Dept. of Management participated the “College Project Competition of Promoting Local Product” and got the honorable mention. Their proposal on reviving the traditional straw weaving craft in Yuanli Town, Miaoli County, won adjudicators’ favor for its great ideas of promoting traditional craft and reviving traditional culture. They received a certificate and 5,000 N.T. Dollars at Fu Jen Catholic University on November 13, 2004.

One of the group members, Lin Shu-chin said, “I come from Miaoli, so I am very sorrowful for the decline of traditional straw weaving resulted from the change of economic mode.” Instructed by the chair of the department, Dr. Chen Ding-yuan, Lin with six classmates, including Chan Chun-ping, Lin Yueh-wen, Wu Ya-ting, Wu Yu-chen, Chen Li-yun, and Yang Yu-fei, proposed a project entitled “Treasuring the Straw Weaving of Yuanli.” In the project, they investigate the declining situation of traditional straw weaving craft, and propose short-term, middle-term, and long-term plans to improve the circumstances. The short-term plan is to hold regular forum about traditional straw weaving craft; the middle-term plan is to popularize the straw weaving craft; the long-term plan is to refine the art of straw weaving, and then spread the art all over the world. With these plans, they propose to make local business be rerecogized and inherited by local people, and then become popular in international market.

This activity was sponsored by Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Corporate Synergy Development Center. Through attracting the participation of college students, the competition intends to reinvigorate the local business by discovering more characteristics of local business.