Four university presidents from the U.S. visited TKU last week. Among them, the president of St. Mary University of Minnesota State, Dr. Louis De Thomsis, who arrived last Tuesday, Nov. 11, visited TKU for the first time. In this visit, he signed several bilateral academic agreements, one of which is to sign university sister ties next year. Arrangements for TKU’s President Chang Horng-jinh to visit his university next year are also under way.
The other three university presidents that came to visit on Thursday and Friday of the same week include the head president of University of Maryland, president and vice president of Dominican University of California and their wives, as well as the president of California Management Institute. They have all voiced their willingness and sincerity to cooperate with TKU.
In particular, Dr. De Thomsis was accompanied by Dr. Karen Gulliver, Dean of the College of Management from St. Mary University. Chen Ting-ko, Dean of TKU’s College of Management revealed that once the agreement of sister ties between the two universities is signed next year, his College and their College of Management, together with other colleges, will be able to exchange faculty and students so as to work towards a bilateral credit system in the future, achieving the goal of attaining two university diplomas upon graduation. The Chair of Department of Management Science and Decision Making, Lee Peir-chi, indicated that as the two universities did not have any experience of cooperation so far, the seven chairs of the college including himself met with Dr. De Thomsis and Dr. Gulliver to share teaching experience and discuss possible schedules for the exchange of graduate students, summer credit courses, and a bilateral credit system.
Dr. Kirwan is president of the University of Maryland, which is one of the best-known universities on the East coast of the U.S. One of its many campuses has ties with TKU. Dr. Kirwan has already spoken to President Chang about future opportunities of further cooperation.
Both Presidents of Dominican University of California and California Management Institute arrived last Friday to visit the Tamsui campus. Dominican University of California, which is more than one hundred years old, has won one of the highest honors awarded by an American academic evaluation committee, and it has a high percentage of graduate students on campus, approximately one third of the total. It has a campus in Paris and is contemplating expanding its campus in Asia by cooperating with well-known universities from this region in order to promote its global MBA program. The President of California Management Institute, Mao Ping-ji, on the other hand, stated that his university has some strategic ties with Harvard and Stanford University and seeks to establish academic ties with TKU.
