Rules for the minimum credits for graduate students on Master and Ph.D. programs have been softened after a heated debate by the Office of Academic Affairs on May 12. It has been decided that instead of a 12 credits threshold, a student will be expelled only when he/she has earned 0 credits after one year of study. Once President Chang approves of this revision, it will become effective in the coming semester.

The original minimum 12 credits were considered too harsh by some parents of TKU’s graduate students. One of the parents, in particular, complained officially to the university that his child did not meet this minimum due to some important academic experiments; hence, he requested the university to reconsider this rule and give his child another chance to make up for the classes. As this student’s case is not an isolated incident--half of his classes are all facing similar fate, the university felt it was necessary to address this issue more fundamentally. On May 12, they decided that TKU would follow what Fu Jen University had been implementing, which is expulsion when no credits are earned after one year of study. Fu Hsi-ren, the Dean of Office of Academic Affairs emphasizes that even after this revision, TKU still maintains a tough stance on students who do not show any serious inclination for studying.

Finally, the Vice President of the Academic Affairs, Feng Chao-kang uses National Taiwan University as a good example to remind all teachers to invest maximum efforts in teaching in order to keep students interested. Each year, the Ministry of Education examines the rate of students withdrawing from studies either voluntarily or compulsorily, to evaluate the quality of a university (Chinese Culture University tops the list so far, with TKU being the 10th with a rate of 1.18%). The results of the next academic year will be announced in June 2005, so Vice President reiterates the importance of maintaining a high quality of teaching to all teachers should we desire to uphold our good reputation.