2015.1217
International Friendship Exhibition Hall Showing Gifts from Sister Schools
With universities being more interactive than ever, gifts from sister schools are common. The Office of International Affairs designed an International Friendship Exhibition Hall to display what NTNU has received during the years. These precious gifts includes memorial mugs, memorial coins, paintings, memorial plates and so on. The exhibition hall was opened on 7th December.
On the opening ceremony, President Chang Kuo En, Vice President Cheng Chih Fu, Vice President Wu Cheng Chih and Deputy Director-General Chiu Yu-chan of the Department of International & Cross-strait Education were the guests for ribbon cutting ceremony.
Take a walk at the campus of NTNU and you can see people from all over the world. The Mandarin Training Center was established 60 years ago, drawing as much as 6000 students from 80 countries to learn Chinese. Number of students who are studying for a degree is climbing every year. In the school year of 2015, there are 1160 foreign students, contributing 8.8% of the total number.
NTNU also form relationship with world known universities, having 278 sister schools worldwide. We offer bilateral degree program, exchange program, visiting student program and short-term language learning study as well as internship programs. In this semester, there are 182 foreign students come to NTNU as exchange students, 20% more than that of last year. 259 students from NTNU went abroad this semester, 14% more that of last year.
Therefore, NTNU set up an International Friendship Exhibition Hall, which is located at the first floor of the historical relic, the administration building. There are two sections in the hall, one is textual gifts and the other is video section. When you enter the exhibition section, you will see a map of NTNU’s school sisters, showing our connection to the world.
The most eye-catching are the 40 gifts being exhibited, which were originally put at the storage room or reception room. Mostly are memorial plates with a school badge or a painting on it. Including a Memorial Plate given by Leiden University, which was established in 1575 as well as a crystal souvenir from New Zealand's oldest university Otago University. Frank Ying said that Leiden University is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Two parties have established a long term friendship for 20 years. “NTNU plays an important role in promoting traditional Chinese in Europe.” said Ying
The most special one is “Academic cooperation agreement between Pennsylvania State University and National Taiwan Normal University” Dean Ying said that Pennsylvania State University is NTNU’s first sister school, signed in 1953. Just shortly after Chinese Civil War, and the government just came to Taiwan. NTNU was grateful of Pennsylvania State University giving a hand for initiating the cooperation.
Simon Fraser University and Johns Hopkins University gave us some beer mugs, Ritsumeikan University and Tokyo Gakugei University presented wood paintings, showing the delicate traditional craft. In the video section, videos of exchange students or academic occasions are being played.