On the 17th of December, a delegation of 20 dignitaries from the Shanghai Municipal Education Committee visited Tamkang University. Three days later, on the 20th, seven delegates from Shanghai’s Sanda University came to TKU to observe and learn.

The first group of visitors, from the Shanghai Municipal Education Committee, came to Taiwan to observe Tamkang’s exceptional campus safety facilities, which have seen it become the first university in the world to receive “safe school” status by the World Health Organization (WHO). The group was received by the TKU Vice President for International Affairs, Dr. Wan-chin Tai, along with the Dean of the Office of General Affairs, Jeng Hoang-ell. Together, they hosted the guests in a round of discussions and brief reports. Yang Qi-wei, a well-known educator who lead the delegation, said that the main purpose of their visit was to observe and study the overall service and safety management standards in place in Taiwanese universities. They also came to learn about the precautionary mechanisms TKU has implemented to monitor student safety and deal with emergency situations.

After the informal discussions, Dean Jeng Hoang-ell took the visitors on a tour of the campus’ safety facilities. The visitors were impressed. They returned home with a positive impression and a plethora of new ideas.

Then, on the 20th of December, delegates from Sanda University arrived at Tamkang’s Tamsui Campus, and together with a handful of TKU faculty and staff, took part in a series of informal discussions and reports. Sanda Vice President, Jia Qiao-ping, stated that Sanda University, established in 1992, is a young university still in the process of learning the ropes. They thus came to Tamkang to learn, to soak up the experience and knowledge of their older cross-strait neighbor, and to take what they learned home and apply it. They were intrigued by TKU’s Community Learning program and impressed by the theme-based laboratories designed by the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering. In future, these items will become models upon which Sanda will base its development.