About LAC

Vision and Purpose
Organizational Chart
Educational Model
Road Map

Vision and Purpose

The university is the cradle for the pursuit of truth, the deep dive into new knowledge, and the cultivation of talents. Aside from striving towards academic breakthroughs, it accounts for the all-rounded development and cultivation of human talent. As such, this institution particularly emphasizes humanistic education in the undergraduate division, meticulously designing and promoting a ‘person-centered’ ‘liberal arts education’ in hopes of developing future elite talent with professional hard skills and liberal arts soft skills. Differing from the traditional viewpoint of primary “professional education” and supplemental “general education”, the liberal arts education of this institution emphasizes the lived practice of learning through doing, in particular adding on to the facets of “experiential education” and “social education”, and innovating a “diverse and transdisciplinary” liberal arts education brand and method unique to Taiwan. With “humanistic education” as its vision, we hope to realize the following on our campus: create a free and diverse thought atmosphere, develop a respectful and inquisitive attitude towards life, cultivate a taste rich with humanities, arts, and ethics, and hold concern for humanity while understanding the multifacetedness and mutability of cultural values. Education is the key to resolving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As one of the leading innovative and excellent universities in Taiwan with both professional hard power and liberal arts soft power, this institution is developing methods to implement the SDGs, putting effort towards issues of sustainable development. In order to implement the UN SDGs, the spirit of “action” is of great importance, and Knowledge to Action (K2A) is a pivotal step. To reach this goal, this institution beginning in 2021 has initiated the school-wide undergraduate-level National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Liberal Arts College (NYCU College) to promote and execute a liberal arts education. It takes learning in Taiwanese higher education as its standard, and person-centeredness as its core, to construct diverse and rich general education courses and activities. The liberal arts education of this institution further encourages the spirit of “learning through doing”, strengthening lived practice and the cultivation of attitude. We encourage students to organize self-directed learning groups and participate in the management of diverse and transdisciplinary social circles, planning activities with interest as their guiding force, training their teamwork and creating a self-learning environment. To promote the learning of the above soft skills, we encourage students to uphold the following five metrics of social education competency: healthy living, interpersonal relationships and group cooperation, leadership and service, cultural participation, and internationally-minded citizenship.

Organizational Chart

“Transdisciplinary Competency” is the foundation of general education, and needs to be fostered through the spirit of innovation under the pretext of a respect for professional knowledge. The vessel of liberal arts learning at NYCU is the Liberal Arts College, specially set up with college students at the center. It collaborates with school-wide academic units as well as the General Education Center, the Center for Physical Education and Sports, the Arts Center, and Community and Peer Education to collaboratively drive, promote and execute a “diverse and transdisciplinary” liberal arts education. Weaving and bringing together the “professional” and “experiential” education of the departments and the school-wide “General Education” and “Community & Peer Education” of the Liberal Arts College, we develop excellent human talent with “Transdisciplinary Competency”.

Educational Model

With a deep concern for humanistic values, education at NYCU’s Liberal Arts College encompasses diverse facets, a “diverse and transdisciplinary” educational model that brings together “professional”, “general”, “experiential”, and “community and peer” education. It promotes all-rounded liberal arts learning ideals within and without the classroom as well as in-residence learning, while cultivating π-shaped human talents with broad vision who can grasp the pulse of the times and design a new society.

NYCU’s “diverse and interdisciplinary” liberal arts educational model is built on the “Liberal Arts Education” implemented in the West for over a millennium, with the four primary elements of its educational philosophy as follows:

Transdisciplinary Competencies: Cultivating students to become “free people” in their knowledge, rather than “slaves”. The scope of liberal arts education in medieval Europe included topics such as grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, algebra, music, and astronomy.
Interpersonal Connections: The spirit of education is not merely to robotically teach certain courses; it encompasses a cluster of dimensions, value systems, beliefs, and the indispensable ‘human factor’, that of the close contact between teacher and student.
Diverse Learning: Cultivating “jacks-of-all-trades”, this represents a “complete education” model, where we construct a special learning environment (both in and out of the classroom) for all-rounded learning through methods such as individualized guidance, relational closeness, and small-class-size environments.
Living Practice: Compared to vocational or professional education, the goal of liberal arts education lies in “the ‘firmly-rooted establishment of character’ and the study of ‘moral and spiritual cultivation’”. It is not merely the knowledge of generalized education, but further strengthens the lived practice of an all-rounded education.

By cultivating students’ “professional hard power” and “liberal arts soft power” through diverse, transdisciplinary aspects of all-rounded learning, the scope of diverse, transdisciplinary aspect learning includes:

Road Map

Liberal Arts Education is built on a foundation of almost a millennium of success in the West, emphasizing transdisciplinary competencies, interpersonal connection, diverse learning, and lived practice. Its executive aspects include departmental academic units, as well as courses and activities by the relevant academic affairs offices, international affairs offices, general education centers, fitness centers, and arts and culture centers. Diverse and transdiscipline-oriented learning content encompasses existent traditions as well as innovative knowledge-based and activity-based projects. The planned schedule is expected to be completed within 3 years, to be continually adjusted and strengthened over the next 3 to 10 years, with the completion of collegiate organizations and facilities to meet our sustainable vision. The hope of liberal arts education is to provide a holistic education where “arts and sciences meet; individual and collective balance”; to establish a humanistic course structure, forstering a “NYCU Holistic Community”; to promote knowledge and character growth, and furthermore a care for and service to society; and simultaneously to allow students to seek value in life, learn the skill of thinking and judging independently, and become a high-quality citizen.