Carrying out TQM for many years, TKU has finally won the “Organization Award” of 19th National Quality Award approved by Ministry of Economic Affairs, and made a landmark for itself. Leading by Dr. Flora C.I. Chang, President of TKU, 120 TKU students and teachers attended the award ceremony, held on May 5 at Kuo-kuang Conference Hall, CPC Corporation Building. All the participants witnessed the historical moment with joyful mood when President Chang received the prize. “I am very grateful to all the TKU members for their hardworking to implement TQM with the incomparable spirit of cooperation,” said President Chang touchingly.

The applicants for the National Quality Award need to go through a serious and careful evaluation process. The eight evaluation items include “leadership and management concepts,” “strategic management,” “development and innovation,” etc. The judges praised TKU for it set up the Tamkang Quality Award according to the structure of the National Quality Award in order to encourage the units that execute TQM better. Moreover, TKU constructs Tamkang’s “House of Quality” to interpret the management concepts, promotes many TQM activities in school, recruits visually-impaired students in Dept. of Chinese, develops all kinds of teaching aids for visually-impaired education, and proceeds benchmarking actively, etc. All these are the reasons for TKU to win the Award.

TKU has implemented TQM for 17 years. Though the university has failed to be named one of the winners of the 2001 and 2007 National Quality Award, with the spirit of “continuous improvement,” the school improves itself from the experience of previous two attempts and is finally able to claim the glory. President Chang pointed out that one of the reasons for TKU to win the Award is that it actively learns from other successful corporations. “Therefore, this Award represents TKU has successfully brought the idea of corporation management into the academic field,” President Chang said. Dr. Hsu Ting-chi, Secretary-General, TKU, and the representative of TKU policies for the National Quality Award, also expressed, “From each failure, we got many precious experiences to improve ourselves.”

After the award ceremony, President Chang held a press conference immediately at Sheraton Taipei Hotel. She indicated that TKU would be glad to share the experience of winning the National Quality Award with other colleges and universities, elevating the whole quality for Taiwan’s higher education. Therefore, TKU is going to hold the event of demonstration on benchmarking in the middle of June, providing some useful information to the organizations that try to carry out TQM and apply for the National Quality Award. Meanwhile, Dr. Hsu said that TKU will continue to execute TQM and apply the idea to the students in the future. Dr. Bair Dyi-ching, Section Chief, the Educational Evaluation Section, Center for Learning and Teaching, also expressed that their future goal is not only to increase the methods and tools of quality management, but also to make improvement to the problems.

Lee Tai-chia, a junior of Dept. of Business Administration who attended the award ceremony, said excitedly, “I am really proud of being a TKU student.” He indicated that the Award could bring benefits to TKU’s graduates-to-be, helping them get employment more easily. Chen Lien-wen, an alumnus of Dept. of Chinese, expressed his great enjoyment after knowing the good news. He said, “It is very creative to apply the idea of corporation management to the school. TKU becomes a corporation, students are the customers, and parents should feel at ease to let their children enter this quality-assured university!” ( ~Shu-chun Yen )