NTNU Establishes Strategic Relationships with Top Universities in the United States
Vice President of NTNU Yung-hsiang Frank Ying led a delegation to the United States recently, visiting Purdue University (QS ranking 129th), Pennsylvania State University (QS ranking 93rd), University of California, Santa Barbara (THE ranking 64th). NTNU has met with Purdue University in regards to partner universities and Taiwan Huayu BEST Program; deepened collaboration as strategic partners and held the workshop under the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program at Penn State University; and met with the principal and Chinese teachers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This trip not only promotes the exchanges between NTNU and well-known universities in the United States, it is also a great opportunity to reinforce our strategic partnerships and expand the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program.
The delegation consists of Vice President for International Affairs Yi-De Liu, Chair of the Department of Chinese as a Second Language Jia-Fei Hong and Associate Executive Director of Mandarin Training Center Chao Mei Tu and is led by Vice President Yung-hsiang Frank Ying. The delegation went to Purdue University on November 14 to 15 to discuss the cooperation at university level and Chinese learning. The relationship between NTNU, Cheng Kung University, Purdue University and Penn States can be traced back to 1953, when NTNU and CKU received the support of USAID with the assistance of Purdue University and Penn States. 70 years later, NTNU gives back by the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program, offering premium Chinese teaching resources to universities in the United States.
With the generous assistance of Wei Hong, the Senior Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the delegation met with Mung Chiang, President-elect of Purdue University, and had discussions with the teachers of the College of Liberal Arts, College of Education, College of Science, College of Engineering, College of Management and College of Health and Human Sciences and the administrative director of the Office of International Affairs. The two universities will sign a MOU and an agreement of the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program.
Penn State University and NTNU became partner universities in 1998. In 2013, the two universities jointly established an Institute of Research Excellence in Learning Sciences to conduct academic exchanges. In 2016, the relationship was elevated as strategic partnership. In addition to academic exchange, they have set administrative benchmarks on various topics like unversity affairs development, college affairs planning, new student guidance, online university, digital courses, online education, alumni network management, etc.
In order to strengthen mutual strategic partnership and promote research and teaching cooperation with academic value, the two universities started the Collaboration Development Fund Request for Proposals project in 2019 where full-time teachers of the two universities jointly propose academic research projects. In recent years, the two sides have conducted exchanges through Chinese language teaching. Last year, they signed the first phase of the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program agreement and jointly established an overseas Chinese language teaching center. The focus of this trip is to strengthen the academic research cooperation between strategic partners, to conduct exchanges on administrative benchmark learning, including the Global Classroom and the bilingual university plan, and to hold a local Taiwan Huayu BEST Program workshop to conduct academic exchanges on Chinese language teaching topics between the two universities.
The last university visited by the delegation was the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California, after the delegation led by President Cheng Chih Wu of NTNU in 2017. The two schools signed Taiwan Huayu BEST Program in June this year, and have sent two Chinese teachers to the school for Chinese language teaching. In January next year, USCB will also send students to NTNU to learn Chinese. This time, the delegation met with the Taiwanese-American Chancellor Henry T. Yang who has recruited six Nobel Prize winners. The two sides reached a consensus to sign a school-level MOU.
Through this trip, NTNU has so far established 11 partners with universities in the United States ranked within QS 200, including Pennsylvania State University, University of California, Santa Barbara, Purdue University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Maryland, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Diego, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Strengthening international academic exchanges and building connection with world class universities are always top priorities of NTNU.
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https://www.psu.edu/news/global-programs/story/national-taiwan-normal-university-delegation-visits-university-park/