By Office of International Cooperation

The delegation of Doshisha University (Dodai, located in Kyoto City, Japan) paid their visit to National Chengchi University (NCCU) on May 17th, while NCCU was celebrating its 92nd anniversary. The delegation composed of President Prof. Takashi Matsuoka, Prof. Yuejun Zheng, Executive Dean of Organization for the Promotion of Global Cooperation, and Mr. Satoshi Isono, Secretary to the President. The three delegates had met the former President of NCCU Edward Chou in December 2017. This time, the representatives first met with Prof. Ming-Cheng Kuo, the current President. Later on, they had a meeting at the Office of International Cooperation, to have a further discussion with NCCU academic professors for future cooperation, especially in the fields of political sciences, economics, and public policy.

Doshisha University is one of the most privileged private universities in Japan. The Japanese Christian missionary named Joseph Neesima founded the school in 1875. Dodai had initially been an English school, but it gradually developed into a university with 14 faculties. Both Dodai and NCCU enjoy an excellent reputation in the fields of social studies, law, economics, commerce, policy studies, and international affairs. These similarities connected NCCU and Dodai tightly. Since 2009, two universities have been sister schools and more than 15 NCCU students studied at Dodai through the student exchange program. Currently, both universities wish to further cooperate, especially in the cooperation of academic research and the new learning method for their students.

During the meeting, President Kuo shared his vision of making NCCU an international hub for sinology and the Chinese learning environment shortly and encouraged Dodai to send more students to NCCU. As for the meeting in the OIC office, Dodai and NCCU reached a consensus for future academic cooperation, such as a double degree in the fields of political science, economics, and public policy. Dodai also mentioned that they would bring today's cooperation consensus back to their related faculties and let those faculties contact NCCU's counterparts directly.

At the end of the OIC meeting, President Matsuoka mentioned that the number of graduate students in humanities and social science is decreasing in recent years. Hence, President Matsuoka wishes to improve the quality and value of their graduate program to attract more students. One way he thinks might feasible is to bring in more international perspectives to the program by working with international partners like NCCU. As Taiwan is facing the same challenge now, NCCU is willing to cooperate with Dodai to pursue such a collaboration that can elevate students' global mindset and cultivate their global competence.