Ciji University in Taiwan. PHOTO COURTESY OF DING-HWA HSIEH.
National Taiwan University, founded by the Japanese colonial government in 1928, is the largest and most prestigious university in Taiwan.
The National Taiwan University is the oldest university in Taiwan. Its antecedent was the Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial University, founded by the Japanese colonial government in 1928. When the Taihoku University was first established, it had only two colleges with sixty students. It was then expanded to include five colleges with 382 students before the end of World War II.
Following Taiwan’s retrocession to Chinese sovereignty in 1945, the Nationalist government resumed the administration of the Taihoku University and renamed it National Taiwan University. Lo Tsung-lo, a Japan-trained botanist, was appointed by the Ministry of Education as the first president. During the 1950s, Japanese-trained scholars gradually faded away in academic circles. Since then, the position of NTU presidency was dominated by American-trained scholars. In the 2000 academic year, the university had in total ten colleges and eighty departments and graduate institutes with a student body of more than 27,000. And in the 2007 academic year, the university had in total eleven colleges and 152 departments and graduate institutes with a student body of more than 32,000.
Over the past seventy years, the National Taiwan University produced many prominent people in various fields. According to 2005 statistics of the U.S. National Science Foundation, 1,190 graduates from National Taiwan University acquired a doctor’s degree in the United States from 1999 to 2003, ranking eleventh in the world. Among them, 376 received doctorates in engineering and life science, ranking second and ninth in the world, respectively. Furthermore, as of 2006, well-known alumni of National Taiwan University includes twenty domestic university presidents and ninety-one members of Academia Sinica, among which one member was awarded the Nobel Prize and at least fifteen were admitted to the U.S. Academy of Sciences. In political circles since the 1990s, its graduates have increasingly replaced politicians trained by universities in the Chinese mainland before 1949, and have occupied most of the minister-level positions within the government.
Further Reading
Greene, J. M. (2008). The origins of the development state in Taiwan: Science policy and the quest for modernization. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
National Taiwan University official website. (2008). Retrieved October 23, 2008, from http://www.ntu.edu.tw
Ou Suying. (2006). Zhuancheng yu chuangxin: zhanhou chugi Taiwan daxue di zai chufa (1945–1950) [Continuity and Innovation: Taiwan University during the early post-war period, 1945–1950]. Taipei: Taiwan guji Publishing House.
Xiang Jie. (Ed.). (2005). Guoli Taiwan daxue xiaoshi: gao (1928–2004) [A draft history of National Taiwan University, 1928–2004]. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press.
Source: Chang, Jui-?te. (2009). National Taiwan University. In Linsun Cheng, et al. (Eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, pp. 1561–1562. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing.
The campus of the National Taiwan University, the oldest university in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Over the past seventy years, the university has produced many prominent people in various fields. Its motto is “Integrity, Diligence, Patriotism, and Philanthropy.” As a symbol of growth and nurturing, the university chose to plant a row of palm trees along the avenue that leads to the library. PHOTO BY ALLEN TIMOTHY CHAN.
National Taiwan University (Guólì Táiw?n Dàxué ??????)|Guólì Táiw?n Dàxué ?????? (National Taiwan University)
