A total of six departments and graduate institutes will be merged or changed titles in the 2011 academic year, according to the resolutions made in the 63rd University Affairs meeting. If Department of History and the Graduate Institute of European Studies (PhD program) succeed in their appeal to the Ministry of Education to be removed from the MOE Watch List, prior to the submission deadline for TKU’s report on “2011 academic year recruitment amount and rearrangement of department or institute,” they will continue to recruit students.

The meeting also concluded that the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering will contain two divisions, Water Resources Engineering Division and Environmental Engineering Division. Dr. Li Chi-wang, chair of the department, indicates that each division focuses on different area of expertise. He hopes the new divisions can help students to concentrate on respective specialty. In this way, students can also continue to strength their competitiveness and get professional certificates more easily.

Meanwhile, Department of Global Politics and Economics will change its Chinese title to fit its designation; Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management will become “Department of International Tourism Management”; Department Of Multicultural and Linguistics Studies will be changed into to “Department of English Language”; Division of Life Science, Master’s Program in Chemistry will turn into “Biocheminstry Division”; Undergraduate Program of Department of Management Sciences and Decision Making, Graduate Institute of Management Sciences (MA, PhD, EMBA programs), will all be merged as one “Department of Management Science” (Undergraduate, MA, PhD, EMBA programs).

Chair of both Departments of Multicultural and Linguistic Studies and Department of Global Politics and Economics, Dr. Cheng Chin-mo explained the name changing was meant to make the Chinese name of the department fit with the same with its English one. “We still keep courses on globalization, while incorporate courses on politics and with those of economics to inform students with issues of global politics and economics,” Dr. Chang said. Dr. Chang explains that the name-changing of Department of Multicultural and Linguistic Studies to Department of English language is because the original title covers too wide range of expertise. The new title will re-orientate the department on using English as a tool to understand multiple cultures. Different from Department of English in Tamsui campus, his department will focus mainly on applied English for business use. ( ~Yeh Yun-kai )