Yancheng Normal University President Visits NCUE for 3rd Time to Extend Exchange

The President of Yancheng Normal University (YNU) in Mainland China, Zhong Fang, led a delegation to visit NCUE to exchange views on future cooperation. This is President Fang’s third-time visit to NCUE. The delegation members of each visit he led were superintendents from different academic departments and administrative offices. It is intended for full-scale development of cooperation with NCUE based upon existing experience.

YNU and NCUE became partner universities in 2015. Located in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, YNU was established in 1958. Last September it celebrated its 60^th anniversary. YNU is composed of 17 colleges and 77 departments with 21 thousand students. NCUE Vice President Ming-Fei Chen has visited YNU twice, including the attendance at its anniversary celebration. YNU President Fang has visited NCUE three times. He was invited to join the farewell banquet held by the Office of International and Cross-strait Affairs (OICA) for exchange students in June 2017 when he was visiting NCUE.

Vice President Chen expressed his expectations for further exchange between the two institutions because both share the feature of teacher education and have many corresponding degree programs. Both sides exchanged views on future cooperation and related fields.

According to President Fang, the friendship between YNU and NCUE has a long history. As a saying goes, “friendship is like wine, the older the better”. Apart from facilitating the relationship, his visit aims to extend the exchange between both universities and invite NCUE faculty to pay a visit to YNU.

President Fang is specialized in Taiwanese literature, especially the works of Changhua-born poet Ho Lai, who is hailed as the father of modern Taiwanese new literature. He published research papers and came to Changhua in 1999 to visit the relics of Ho Lai. Dr. Yi-Chung Chou, Dean of the College of Arts at NCUE, gave President Fang a book compiled by himself about Ho Lai as a gift when they met at NCUE, adding an unexpected but warm episode to President Fang’s visit.