For the first time, the Cheers Magazine held an evaluation by university presidents and announced the top 20 best universities in school running performances today. Asia University (AU) was listed No. 2 and awarded together with the rest top 5 schools, including National Taiwan University, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, National Taipei University of Technology, and Feng Chia University, by Publisher Yun-Peng Yin of the Common Wealth Magazine. Heading to the 14th year of the foundation, AU has been evaluated one of the teaching excellence universities by the Ministry of Education (MOE) for 11 straight years and received the third high subsidy nationwide this year. Moreover, AU was listed in top 100 universities in three of THE (Times Higher Education) World University Rankings, which is the youngest university in Asia and in the world. As No. 2 of the best universities in running schools evaluated by the Cheers Magazine, AU is worth of the fame without doubt.
The Cheers Magazine invited the presidents of 152 universities in Taiwan to appraise through comparison and choose universities that improved significantly in school-running performances. The results came out today and the top 3 went to Feng Chia University, Asia University and National Taiwan University. Feng-Zhen Liu, President of the Cheers Magazine, said that AU was a “dark horse” which was listed No. 99 among the new universities founded within 50 years by THE. In addition, it had an average registration rate of 96% and some of the departments even reached 100%. With such great performances, AU is definitely a rising star in the private universities newly established.
Zhi-Lang Zeng, an Academician of the Academia Sinica and the former minister of the MOE, spoke highly of AU as well that it was internationally famous for its excellence in school running achieved in less than 14 years; and that being listed top 100 in three rankings by THE, AU is amazingly well-known in the world for its great performances.
AU President Jeffrey J.P. Tsai said that AU has received Teaching Excellence Programs of the MOE for 11 straight years with a total subsidy of NTD 547 million. Especially, the subsidy of 120 million for years 2015 and 2016 announced last week was the third high nationwide, which was extremely rare for such a young school as AU. Furthermore, it had a great improvement in the academic ranking internationally as well. In three evaluations released by THE in UK, AU was listed in top 100 in three rankings as follows. The first was the ranking of AU as No. 99 in the global top 100 universities that was founded within 50 years. AU was the No. 1 private university among the four Taiwanese schools on the chart. The second was the ranking of AU as No. 83 among the top 100 universities in Asia, while AU was the No. 10 in Taiwan. The third was the ranking of AU as No. 53 of the universities in BRICS & Emerging Economies, while AU was the No. 10 in Taiwan and the youngest university both in Asia and in the world.
In addition, the College of Creative Design at AU won numerous prizes in the international design competitions. Other than 29 prizes of IF and Red Dot in Germany, 2 prizes of G-Mark in Japan were granted to Taiwanese students for the first time in 57 years. As the No. 28 in the IF university ranking, AU was also the No. 1 of the higher education system that participated in international design competitions encouraged and subsidized by the MOE. In the past five years, AU has been renowned overseas for winning 232 medals in the invention competitions in Korea, Malaysia, Switzerland, France, Belgium, etc.
“It’s a feature of AU to work on learning and practicing integration as well as employment guarantee,” said President Tsai. AU always puts students first in teaching and research, emphasizes aesthetics education, and promotes the spirits of volunteer university and four-creative campus. Through advisors for the student classes and careers, and mentors to take care of lives and studies of the students, AU expects to develop students of virtue, humanity, and art. In addition, AU has cooperated with 84 companies, including the Pou Chen Group, Giant Group, and Wowprime Group, to guarantee employment for 1000 students. A foundation of NTD 50 million also helps alumni and current students to start up their own businesses. In order to restructure the school system, Asia University has started to build a hospital last July and it will be ready to operate in February next year. The Department of Nursing was set up last year at AU and the graduates who are qualified as registered nurses will be offered a monthly wage of NTD 50,000 at the AU Hospital. The Department of Optometry established this year will also help the students to be more competitive in the job market.
