NCUE President Yen-Kuang Kuo, who led a delegation to attend 2017 Taiwan Higher Education Exhibition held in Kuala Lumpur and Yong Ping of Malaysia, returned to Taiwan in mid-July. At the event, many Malaysian students were interested in NCUE because of its good academic reputation, close academic relationship with Malaysia and scholarships offered for Malaysian students. President Kuo also visited NCUE’s partner universities including Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Malaysia Sarawak University and Han Chiang College, and independent high schools, hoping to deepen the relationship with “New Southern-bound Policy” countries and extend the opportunities of international exchange for NCUE faculty and students.
With the remarkable progress of internationalization, NCUE has extended its partner network to more areas around the world. Its partner universities cover 16 countries, including the United States, Germany, the UK, France, Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Around ten quality non-Chinese new partner universities and prospective partners are added this year, all of which reserve exchange quota for NCUE students. Thailand, Russia and Spain, in which a new partner or partner-to-be is located respectively, are the countries that NCUE develops a partnership with for the very first time.
NCUE made a breakthrough in the academic exchange with Eastern Europe! Dr. Dimiter Velev, Professor of the Department Information Technologies and Communication at the University of National and World Economy (UNWE), Bulgaria, visited NCUE with his wife in the hope of establishing a cooperative mechanism between two universities. UNWE is an elite university whose graduates have been prominent scientists, state figures, and four Prime Ministers. It is expected that his visit would facilitate the development of the relationships between NCUE and the countries of Eastern Europe.
The Office of International and Cross-strait Affairs (OICA) at NCUE hosted a farewell banquet for the exchange students before the end of the semester. The student representatives stated at the banquet that the care from NCUE faculties and schoolmates and the kindness and hospitality of locals made the past five months their best memory in life. President of Yancheng Teachers University from Mainland China, Mr. Chung Fang, was also present at the event to experience being part of NCUE family.
Right after NCUE and Kennesaw State University (KSU) in Georgia, U.S. concluded a partnership agreement, Dr. Svetlana Peltsverger, the interim Associate Dean of the College of Computing and Software Engineering at KSU, paid a visit to NCUE discussing the establishment of dual-degree programs with the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering. When the agreement has been officially reached, the collaboration will enable NCUE to offer students another opportunity of seeking Taiwan-US joint degrees.
In response to the New Southbound Policy of the Government, NCUE has actively expanded ties with ASEAN higher education based on the strategy of internationalization. Recently NCUE established a partnership with University HKBP Nommensen (UHN) in Indonesia, increasing the number of NCUE’s partner schools to 127. UHN spares no effort to promote the interaction with Taiwan. Recently Dr. Richard Napitupulu, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at UHN, visited NCUE in the hope of sending students over to pursue Ph.D. or to study on exchange.
Professor Jens Mörchel in the Faculty of Business Studies at Fachhochschule Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts (FH Dortmund), Germany, visited NCUE President Yen-Kuang Kuo in May and talked to the students who are planning to study in Germany on exchange. Dortmund have been running the exchange program benefiting many students since they became partner universities. Dr. Mörchel indicated that the safety in society and the efficient transportation system make Taiwan a nice destination for German students to study and travel. He looks forward to closer interactions between the students of the two universities.
A group of students from the Longyan University, one of NCUE’s partner schools in Mainland China, is expected to study in the field of business and administration at NCUE for a full year from the coming September based on the cooperation agreement. President Qitan Ling of Longyan led a group to visit NCUE recently to have a discussion about the one-year study project in details and further cooperation between the two universities. Teacher exchanges and industry-academy cooperation in the future are highly expected.
A visiting group of five from Jilin Normal University (JNU) of Mainland China visited NCUE to exchange views about future cooperation and exchange. JNU is a key university in Jilin Province into which the government has been pouring abundant resources, particularly focusing on basic sciences such as Chemistry. NCUE is planning to sign the cooperation agreement with JNU, adding a prestigious university to the partner list. NCUE Vice President Ming-Fei Chen expressed his high expectation of further cooperation between two universities starting with short-term exchange visits.
Chinese Programs at the Division of Chinese, Language Center are open to foreigners who are over 18 years old or possess at least a high school diploma or its equivalent.
