The amount of junior, graduate students and the exchange students, who will study abroad in of the Sister Schools who study abroad in the 2009 academic year, reaches to the high point again. In this abroad studying program, there are totally 452 students, who will go to in 47 Sister Schools and 16 non-Sister Schools in 15 countries, spreading in America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and study for a year. The flag-passing ceremony, hosted by President C. I. Chang and Founder Clement Chang, took place in Student Activity Center at June 25 (Wed.) at 14:30.

According to the 2008 college administration statistics of Global View Magazine, Tamkang overpasses other colleges in the amount of abroad studying students, with 385 students taking credits abroad in 2007 academic year. This year, the amount of the students studying abroad is 66 more than that in the previous year, which add up to 438 college students and 14 graduate students. Vice President for International Affairs, Dr. Wan-chin Tai indicates that “we will keep our efforts to be the top one in Taiwan.” The secretary of the Office of International Exchange & International Education, Kuo Shu-min expresses that owing to some students decide to go abroad in advance in July and in order to let every student attend the ceremony of passing the flag to receiver their encouragement, they hold the ceremony a bit earlier this year, and hope every student gain much harvest when studying abroad.

There are 49 exchange students, and they are about to leave for 10 countries and 26 Sister Schools, including Temple University and Winona State University in the United States, Brandon University in Canada, University of Cologne in Germany, Kyonggi University in Korea, Nagasaki University in Japan. The amount of participants of Junior Abroad program in Lanyang Campus is about 189 students, and they are about to studying in University of Waikato in New Zealand, Washington State University in the United Stated, and Charles University in Czech Republic. In College of Foreign Languages and literatures, there are 154 participants, including the top one is the Department of Japanese with 67 students who are going to study in Reitaku University, Kyoto Tachibana University, and Heisei International University. 49 students of the “English Class” of the Department of International Trade will study abroad for a year respectively in University of Queensland in Australia, California State University, Sacramento in the United States.

Besides inviting the students who are going to study abroad and their parents to attend the ceremony, Tamkang also invites the Resident Representatives of different countries to deliver a speech and explain the culture of their countries. And the exchange students, the students who return to Tamkang in Lanyang Campus and the students of the Department of International Trade and the Department of English who will study abroad also delivered a speech and share their experience of studying abroad and their plans. The representative of the parents of the Department of Japanese who will studying abroad will also give a speech and share their feelings and anticipation, they also give their best wishes to those who will studying abroad.

Shiau-rung Gau, a Paraguayan Chinese, sophomore of the Department of Mass Communication, who will leave for California State University, Long Beach, indicates that she likes to experience learning cultures in different countries and experience new things. She is very excited to start a brand-new journey in the United States, and she hopes that she can learn English well and make friends to foreign friends and share her harvest to her Tamkang junior students. ( ~Karen Chang )