Highlights of First Phase's Achievement
National Chiayi University (hereafter NCYU) is a national university with unique advantageous inheritance of agricultural and educational fields in Taiwan. NCYU integrates the resources and manpower of seven colleges and actively responds to the problems, such as global epidemics, food crisis and aging population, and cultivates students to become altruistic citizens, by contributing its efforts in teaching, research, and service. Now, NCYU has become the center of knowledge and social welfare in the Chiayi-Yunlin-Tainan region. The relevant highlights of the first phase of the project are as follows.
1. Setting up multiple and flexible courses to improve student autonomous learning: NCYU devotes to perfecting the supporting measures of multiple and automatic learning, and to developing operational capstone courses. Through the course innovation, we strengthen students’ abilities for autonomous learning. From 2018 to 2022, we have set up 455 courses, such as micro-credit courses, deep-bowl courses, capstone courses, interdisciplinary courses, operational courses, teaching practice courses and general practice courses, with a total number of 14,580 persons having taken such courses. According to the self-appraisal survey of seniors for years, the skill of self-learning has increased from 82% to 86%.
2. Offering programming courses to increase students’ professional technological capacity: In 2022, 100% of NCYU students took programming courses. Micro-credit courses have been setup and held interdisciplinary hackathon competitions to encourage the connection with professional knowledge.
3. Setting up a π-shaped educational program to promote talented persons to improve the interdisciplinary capacities: Fourteen programs of interdisciplinary credit have been set up, and a total of 1,232 students took the courses with 393 students obtaining the certificates. The students participating in the competitions, and their performances were outstanding.
4. Holding international exchange activities to deepen students’ experiences to connect with the world: In order to increase the opportunities and experiences of interacting with international students, teaching faculty and scholars, from 2020 to 2022, NCYU organized 41 activities such as the international cultural festivals and fairs, in the hope of building a more international campus and broadening students’ horizons.
5. Founding an agri-food center on campus to extend services and reduce the food safety crisis: In the face of food crisis and issues of food safety and agri-food, the new institute, the Training and Research Institute of Food and Agriculture, has been founded on campus to integrate the existing service capacity, to focus on cultivating talents, and to extend services of food safety and agri-food. The Intelligent Agriculture Research Center has been newly founded for cooperating with industry, government, and the academia to jointly develop the intelligent agriculture and labor-saving smart equipment to reduce labor demand on the farm.
6. Establishing popular science experimental classrooms to share resources with local primary and middle schools: The first laboratory in Chiayi City has been established, which is available to teachers at all levels of schools for developing course materials and guiding students in scientific experiments. In 2019, we have further signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Chiayi City Government, which required a team of teachers and students to regularly hold a total of 85 popular science activities at Children Welfare’s Service Center, Chiayi City. Five popular science picture books on agri-food were published and provided as teaching materials for promoting science popularization to the libraries in primary and middle schools. During the pandemic, four videos of popular science experiment were produced and uploaded to the website for the public to browse.
7. Empowering socioeconomically and culturally disadvantaged students to obtain licenses and employability: Through the multi-mentor system, counseling competency improvement for teachers, life education counseling, peer study group and other counseling activities, there were more than 10,000 socioeconomically and culturally disadvantaged students receiving attention and care. We have also arranged tutoring sessions for socioeconomically and culturally disadvantaged for 232 students to obtain licenses on information. From 2018 to 2022, the average rate of taking and passing the examinations was 89%. There were 370 students obtaining various professional licenses and 461 students having participated in professional empowerment activities or courses.
8. The professional services for the indigenous peoples, the elderly, arts and literature, etc.: Our university has been providing service in indigenous tribes in Ali Mount with existing resources. We have helped them establish planting and cultivation techniques, and to develop endemic produce, in order to pass down the unique indigenous culture and products. Our team also combined units at all levels on and off campus and jointly organized the art and culture events to bring in more local characteristics. Additionally, Neighborhood Long-Term Care Center "Chia-Yuan" has been founded in campus to match the elderly needs with teacher-and-student service. All these have shown that NCYU has been fulfilling the university social responsibility (USR) in the aspects of economic growth, social progress, and environmental protection.
