Purdue and NTNU Deepen Partnership in Sports, Leisure, and Hospitality
Solidifying the sister school partnership between Purdue University and NTNU, Professor Cai Liping, from Purdue's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, met with faculty at the NTNU School of Sports and Leisure on December 27. A continuation of the dialogue initiated on a prior visit in June 2023, the meeting focused on boosting future exchange programs and deepening academic collaborations between the two institutions.
Discussions at the meeting centered on the academic development and resource integration between NTNU’s School of Sports and Leisure and Purdue’s College of Health and Kinesiology, as well as the 2024 international exchange activities between the NTNU School of Sports and Leisure and the Perdue School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Distinguished guests from the Institute for Information Industry were also welcomed to the meetings to discuss potential tripartite teaching and research collaborations between the three institutions.
Professor Cai conveyed strong interest from the Dean of the College of Health and Kinesiology in collaborating with their counterparts at NTNU, which fall within the remit of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the two universities, and said there would be additional support for collaborations between the areas of sports and hospitality, including the currently ongoing and expanding academic research by Professors Tsung-Min Hong and Yu-Kai Chang from NTNU’s Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences and Dr. Alvin Kao at Purdue University.
Dean Ho-Seng Wang anticipated that the enhanced collaborations with Purdue University would pave the way for future developments for both schools that will improve the quality of teaching and research.
Further to the plans for international exchange activities initiated following the meeting in June, Professor Cai said he looks forward to leading a group of students to visit Taiwan in 2024 to experience Eastern culture and interact with students here. He hoped that the initiative will enable students to gain insights into the similarities and differences between the East and West through their experiences here.
Aligning with Professor Cai’s goals of furthering cultural experiences, Director Li-Jung Lin and Associate Professor Tsz-Wai Lui from the Graduate Institute of Sport, Leisure, and Hospitality Management recommended that visiting Purdue students also attend the Institute’s annual international seminar which will be held in May 2024 in Nishikawa, Japan. It is hoped that the success of this program between the two institutes would encourage more students from Purdue to visit Taiwan, and further future collaborations between the two universities.
Also at the meeting were guests from the Institute for Information Industry (III) who gave an overview of the Sports Everywhere program and Behavioral Science Laboratory executed under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Affairs. The III expressed interest in collaborating with Purdue University on exploring future modes of sports, expanding their existing industry-academia collaborations with NTNU’s Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences to foster a new tripartite partnership with laboratories at Purdue University.