UND, Chung Yuan Christian University, sign long-term accord for student, faculty exchanges

President Robert Kelley recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU), a school based in Jhongli City, Taiwan. CYCU President Wan-Lee Cheng also signed the MOU documents in a ceremony on the UND campus.

“We look forward to a long and distinguished collaboration and communications with our colleagues at Chung Yuan Christian University,” said Kelley. “We’ve been working for quite some time on this exchange, involving our College of Business and Public Administration (CoBPA) and other UND programs, and we envision this agreement as a key part of our international and multicultural exchange strategy.”

Cheng—a former faculty member of the UND Department of Industrial Technology—said, “It’s great to back at UND, and we are very excited by the opportunities that this MOU represents. This is very significant for us. We are one of the top 15-ranked research universities in Taiwan. We look forward to working with UND across several academic programs.”

CYCU has an annual enrollment of about 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with 27 baccalaureate degree programs, 29 master’s degree programs, 13 doctoral programs, and a law school. Cheng has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Technology and Education with concentrations in visual communication, statistics, and research.

CYCU is a private university originally established as Chung Yuan Christian College of Science and Engineering in 1955 by a group of Taiwanese and American Christian educators to train science and engineering talent to help Taiwan in its transition from a largely agricultural economy into an industrial powerhouse, Cheng said.

“After a long period of expansion, the school was upgraded to a full university and renamed as Chung Yuan Christian University in 1980,” Cheng said.

Myron Bender, the longtime chair of the UND Department of Industrial Technology, traveled several times on education programs to the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan—including to CYCU—to help set up faculty and student exchanges.

“This exchange with CYCU is a very good fit for UND,” said Bender, who started at UND in 1963 retired in 1996. “It will provide us with many opportunities in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship, energy research, technology and business management education, engineering, and law.”

“I am very enthusiastic about this program,” said Luke Huang, associate professor in the UND COBPA Department of Technology (formerly Industrial Technology). “Strengthening the relationship of UND with universities in China and Taiwan, especially with CYCU, is what I want to see. Through collaboration with international universities, UND will grow quicker, healthier, thus stronger. I believe it is the same for CYCU, too.”

For UND Associate Provost and Professor of Accounting Victoria Beard, a veteran of more than 10 years of leading student and faculty exchanges to China, the UND-CYCU agreement underscores the University’s commitment to expanding international initiatives.

“This is the future,”said Beard, who in 2000 led UND’s first study abroad program to China. “We now have both a major and minor in Chinese Studies through our Department of Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures and a minor in Chinese Language and Business through the College of Business and Public Administration.”

“We see great potential in these agreements, of which UND now has about 30,” she said. “We’re constantly working on new affiliations—such as the one we just signed with CYCU—because we feel that internationalization is where we’re going to get much of our diversity at UND.”

For David Yearwood, associate professor and chair of the UND COBPA Department of Technology, the UND-CYCU agreement is a big step in a direction that he’s very encouraged about.

“Our department hopes to work with Chung Yang Christian University to promote student and faculty exchanges that will be of mutual benefit,” said Yearwood, who also was present at last week’s signing. “My hope is that the opportunity to work with faculty will result in collaborative opportunities that expand our research and improve student learning. I am looking forward to this exciting opportunity and the potential for all involved.”

— Juan Miguel Pedraza, University Relations, 777-6571, juanpedraza@mail.und.edu.