TKU President, Dr. Flora Chang and several other delegates set out for a 10-day trip to the UK, Germany and France, visiting 4 partner universities at the end of April. They returned on May 4th bringing back some unforgettable memories and tangible results in future exchanges. There delegates accompanying her included Chen Hwei-mei, the Director of the Office of International Exchanges and International Education, Tzou chong-ko, the Director of the Graduate Institute European Studies and Tsai Shu-ling, the head of the French Department, who all possess an intimate knowledge of Europe.

Their first stop was the University of Oxford, UK, where they visited three of its colleges: Hertford, Mansfield and Lady Margaret Hall. Hertford, in particular, signed an academic exchange agreement with TKU nearly five years ago and has kept various exchanges going with TKU via video-conferencing ever since. During this visit, TKU delegates expressed the wish of securing a concrete bilateral relationship as soon as possible and hope to see the future junior students of TKU’s new campus in Lanyang can come over for credited courses in 2007. Oxford officials are keen on such a prospect but reserved on number of places that can be offered to visiting students as the university is already considering reducing the enrollment of their undergraduate students in the future.

Their next stop was University of Cologne, Germany, where they were received by Dr. Axel Freimuth personally. UOC formalized the sister tie with TKU nearly 5 years ago and has been sending students to TKU ever since. This year, 3 of their students are expected to arrive at TKU for a one-year exchange program. In reverse, students from TKU have gone there for German studies and cultural experience in the past few years. Dr. Flora Chang and her entourage took this opportunity to visit those who are studying there this year, inquiring after their progress and wellbeing.

After Cologne, the team went over to the nearby University of Bonn, where they met with Dr. Matthias Winiger, their President. After their meeting, as in Cologne, President Change took some time to speak with 15 of TKU’s current exchanged students, and gave them some typical Taiwanese delicatessen, relieving them of some “homesickness”.

The last stop of their journey was University of Jean Moulin in Lyon, France. During their meeting with its President, Dr. Guy Lavorel, TKU signed a bilateral agreement on a duo degree system between the two Colleges of Business. TKU has always enjoyed a good relationship with them as exchange students from both universities have been satisfied with the care they received in the host country. Dr. Lavorel even predicts that there will be more French students who would like to come to Taiwan to study Chinese as Mandarin is gaining its popularity Europe and it is being offered in many French high schools. (~ Ying-hsueh Hu )