The Vice President of the University of Bonn, Germany, Dr. Andreas Hirner expressed his sincere wish to see building closer ties between his university and TKU in his visit, accompanied by his wife last week. The Vice President of Academic Affairs, Feng Chao-kang received them last Monday and a briefing and meeting was organized on their behalf. After the briefing, Dr. Hirner and his wife visited the Maritime Museum, Carrie Chang Fine Arts Center and Chueh-Sheng Memorial Library.

In the meeting, Dr. Hirner revealed that his university is affiliating with two other German universities: The University of Cologne and The Aachen University of Technology to form an union which will have a positive impact on the number of students they will be having.

However, due to the economic slowdown in Germany, fewer students have shown the desire of going on an overseas exchange program. Despite that, Dr. Hirner pledged to encourage German students to come to TKU.

He also revealed exciting news at the dinner party, hosted by President Chang Horng-jinh. He mentioned that his university is promoting English-only lectures and is setting up courses recognized internationally. Both measures are deemed conducive in attracting short-term exchange students so both universities are working out a feasible program.

As a general rule, each year TKU's German Department sends its juniors to Bonn and vice versa. Two years ago University of Bonn sent two exchanged students to TKU, who were the first students from that institution since the program had started. However, due to the outbreak of SARS last year, these two students returned to Germany two months ahead of their schedule. To date, there have not been any students from Bonn studying at TKU.