On May 16, President C. I. Chang led a delegation team of ten, including Dr. Kao Po-yuan, Vice President for Administrative Affairs, and Dr. Hsu Ting-Chi, Secretary General of Office of Secretariat, to visit some Mainland Chinese universities, including Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The delegates also visited the Expo 2010 Shanghai China.

President Chang indicates that in the past most of delegation visits target at Europe, US, and Japan, but in recent years, Chinese universities have progressed a lot, so they choose to visit China, especially the four universities included in “Project 985”—a government-funded project to develop, in cooperation with local government, several top universities to be world-leading. The four visited universities are fully facilitated, and their students are ranked among top 1% of the country. The delegates find that mainland Chinese universities increasingly emphasize core curriculums and the cooperation between universities and enterprises, and these facts propel us to work harder in these areas.

Dr. Lee Pei-wha, Director of Office of International Exchanges and International Education, expresses that this visiting tour benefits educational and administrative staffs a lot. Tamkang has signed an “Agreement of Student Exchanges,” starting from next academic year. On May 20, the date of the 108th anniversary of Nanjing University, TKU delegates paid tributes to the celebration. Dr. Lee adds that TKU has close communication with mainland Chinese universities, and from the visiting we may learn the benefits of the top universities. Representatives of Fudan University and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics will respectively visit TKU in July and November, for student communication and academic conference.

In the Taiwan Pavilion of the Expo 2010, there is a lantern-lighting area, where the visitor can choose one’s favorite blessing words from the computer screen and then projects them onto a virtual “heavenly lantern.” The selected blessing words are written with e-pen system by Mr. Chang Pin-huang, Vice Director of Carrie Chang Fine Arts Center. Chang expresses that it is an honor of himself and a pride of TKU.(Chen Chi-szu)