Su Chien Ling and Pan Shu Man, two members of the Gender Equity Education Committee under the Ministry of Education arrived at TKU last week (14/Nov) on behalf of the committee for the 2007 evaluation assignment. Ms. Su is the Chair of Taiwan Gender Equity Education Association, while Ms. Pan is a professor teaching at the Graduate Institute of Social Work of National Taiwan Normal University.

Both Su and Pan spent approximately 3 hours listening to various briefings and spoke to several key persons in charge of gender equity education at TKU. One of the briefings was given by Dr. Flora Chang, TKU President cum the chair of the university committee whose mission is to promote gender equality on campus. With a female president, one of the only four female presidents of the 160 universities in Taiwan, Su and Pan believe that half of the battle of raising the awareness of equality has already been won. Nonetheless, for the other half of the battle, both committee members see some room for improvement. For instance, the promotional literature on campus should be more student friendly with contents and language that truly meet their needs. To be even closer to students, they suggest that university can recruit student volunteers talking to other fellow students about the importance of gender equality. Furthermore, the role of the staff in charge of the channel of complaints in the case of harassment needs to be defined more clearly.

Other briefings Su and Pan listened to included the plan of increasing the space for women’s restrooms at the Business and Management Building and pick-up services rendered to female students at the small hours. President Chang also added TKU would ensure its male staff and faculty members participate in gender related trainings and conferences in the near future. After these briefings, both committee members were left with a positive impression of TKU. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )