Tamkang University Lanyang CampusThe events for the Biennial Convention of Tamkang University Alumni Union in 2018 were arranged again in Taiwan, in accordance with Tamkang University’s foundation for 68 years and the completion of the Hsu Shou-Chlien International Conference Center. These events were undertaken together by the ROC Alumni General Association, the Elite Alumni Association, and the Association of Department and Faculty Alumni affiliated with Tamkang University, and were overall coordinated and executed by the Association of Department and Faculty Alumni. From March 2 to 3, 2018, some of this year’s events took place on the Tamsui main campus to allow alumni to see the growth and transformation of their alma mater, and to memorise their youth spent here. There were more than three hundred alumni, taking 9 shuttle buses, divided into the morning and afternoon time frames, visiting the Lanyang campus—the garden of wisdom, where the founder put his educational ideals into practice.
The motorcade was met with a beautiful weather once it went out of the Hsueh-shan tunnel and zigzagged up along with the county road. After they stepped down the shuttle busses, they were welcomed with the fresh and delicate Lanyang campus.
Once they settled down, the provost Dr Jyh-horng Lin gave an introduction of the Lanyang campus to them. While there are already more than 250,000 alumni of Tamkang University, there are only 1,511 graduates, 34 full-time professors, 2 adjunct professors, 25 personnel, 1,078 students, and 27 student societies on Lanyang campus. Featuring on a “three-holistic” education, the Lanyang campus imposes the three policies: “all third-year students should go abroad”, “all courses are taught in English”, and “all students live in the college accommodation together”. The policy of “going abroad for all the third-year students” aims to expand students’ understanding of international values, and this makes the only college campus in the world without third-year students. All of them are required to study professional courses over overseas sister universities for one year so as to graduate from here. Since 2007, there are 1,921 students who had been overseas in their third year. Given the results of the Teaching Assessment of the English taught courses on Lanyang campus, for some semesters, some of the results of the English-taught courses even exceeded those of the Chinese-taught courses on Tamsui campus. This is quite a brilliant achievement. On the other hand, the residential college sets the goal to enhance the sense of morality through the way that both the teachers and students live on college accommodation. Therefore, a closely-related studying environment is shaped. Activities covering topics of multi-cultures, eco-environment, art tastes, and Lohas entertainments are held. In the future, the Lanyang campus will highlight the policies promoting overseas practice, overseas NGO experiences, and international volunteers in order to fulfil founder Chang’s educational ideals—to cultivate exceptional college students who are equipped with international vision.
Afterwards, alumni were divided into eight groups to alternately visit the Bistro Penseur, Tamkang-Lanyang gallery, statues of the Hsueh-shan Tunnel, the Artists’ Studio, the Hotel of Practicum, the Happy Kitchen, Lanyang Internet Café, the dormitory, the convenient store, the Happy Farm, Shao-mo Memorial Activity Center, etc. They were guided by Lan-xing ambassadors and administrative staff. Alumni feasted their eyes and took pictures at these touring sites. Finally, all of them took a photograph together and called it a day on Lanyang campus.
