I want is no exception. On todays program, we are delighted and a national lighted and honored to have professor kungyee liang Yangming University, the professor of, to share his date on share his thoughts on the state of Higher Education in taiwan erie i am honored to be here. I am currently the president of the national university. You have been the was a have been the president of National Yangming University you since 2010. Can you give us a general assessment of the state of Higher Education in taiwan today . Sure. I think we are facing numerous challenges for Higher Education in taiwan. The first thing that comes to many peoples minds as we are facing a crisis of having fewer newborn born every year. Not long ago, it was 200,000 a year and now it has dropped to about 140,000. I think in a sense the impact of the university is number one. The other one is we are surrounded by regions like hong kong and singapore that are very aggressive in terms of including the faculty members in taiwan. It is a challenge to retain and recruit talent for the university in taiwan. Also, one of the topics about hikes in taiwan and for your information, in taiwan, that you u. S. Dollar compared to 40,000 for the private university in the states, it is very low and will be difficult to maintain the high quality of education. In the last five or 10 years or so, we have seen fewer and fewer youngsters interested in pursuing degrees grade in the biomedical areas, not just in yamane, but National Taiwan university, and the last five years, weve seen the number of applicants dropped 50 . Really . That is significant. Is very significant. Also in taiwan, the financial situation is not great. I think we are facing serious issues. It used to be that the budget was 100 free for national university, and has dropped below 50 . Meanwhile, the concept, the notion of fundraising donation for Higher Education is still in the infancy stage. Probably to be thats probably the most fundamental one. For professors to think about, to remind themselves from time to time the mission of a Higher Education, we have the commitment to pursuing Higher Education. Thank you for identifying some of the major challenges, but people claim there are so many universities and institutions of Higher Education in taiwan and that is why you become cutthroat competition in terms of recruiting professors and students. Is that the case in your opinion . I think so. Theres an opportunity for the ministry of education to revisit the issue. Are we having too many universities . Yes great are they really fulfilling their mission . There are three different kinds of missions in taiwan. Technology and liberal arts. It has been confusing in terms of innovation, but to make sure each of the university knows their mission and try to fulfill their mission and try to not do what they are not meant to do. You have been the president of national yamane University Since 2010. National Yangming University since 2010. You have been confronted with a not very friendly environment. How do you confront the challenges for your students . More competition from other universities and other places like hong kong or singapore . How do you deal with that . Rex this is not unique. One of the things with the health of the government and the National Science consul in particular, they shipped in a good amount of Financial Support to have a flexible salary. You and i come to the university at the same time. We have the same salary, so there is no merit system. We have a distinguished chair professor, two different kinds, and i think a reasonable salary, hoping we can attract distinguished professors to join us. That is one thing we are doing. You also mentioned fundraising. Ne thing i did not have muchng. Experience before coming back to taiwan, but im working very hard and its not easy, but my sense is in taiwan, a lot of people in the industry have a good mind that really want to help but didnt know in what way they can do, i think i see things Getting Better with efforts and hopefully we can bring some support from the industry. When i talk to them, they are always impressed that we are really committed to education and worry very much about the quality of education in taiwan. Thats a good sign. What i mentioned about the fundraising salaries, they are what i call hardware. To me, it is the software that matters the most. When i first come to Yangming University, i preach for the notion of cohesiveness. Hoping and working together we can make things happen. It is important we all recognize that Higher Education goes a long way. Hoping with their common goal, even though the salary is not as desirable, thinking we are in a unique addition to make decisions for society, i hope we can work together. People often talk about the fact that the College Graduates produced in taiwan are not really suited for industry or professional needs. Thats why there are the recent talks about provided about reviving the Technical Training programs in taiwan. In your opinion, what should be an ideal model for a university . Should it be more concentrated on teaching or Technical Training or on research . Or should it be a combination of all of these . We have three different types in the university. A Research University for one. I want to take this opportunity to clarify some notions. Research in the university doesnt mean we arent done teaching. To the contrary. He for i came back, i was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins university. John hopkins is the first Research University tarting in 1876. A Research University, i was there for many years. My sense is we are trying to pursue excellence but it doesnt mean we are compromised in terms of teaching. We emphasize the quality of teaching, so you should have both. It is not blackand white. You should have both of them. Given the fact a lot of industry people are saying we dont reduce quality graduates that can meet Industry Needs, do you think thats the case with a lot of universities in taiwan . Has that criticism been justified . This is another thing im working on that i recognize there is a gap between the industry in terms of what we need and what we produce. So we are working very hard on their way to gap which hopefully will divide Job Opportunities for our students. It is one of the reasons we have phd students. To see where the jobs are coming from. Its not that we dont have it, but in the past few months, we invite the ceos of many industries, why didnt they come and let us know what they need . What we offer in terms of research, there is a match and i encourage them, the students working on the topic of interest to them. In the meantime, it will give them an opportunity to observe is this someone i really want to hire . Finally, do you think there has been that recognition on the part of students . This is not only the responsibility of government and that university, but do you think there is the motivation that selfawareness with a lot of students in taiwan that we need to be more competitive not just with ourselves but students from other countries . I think so. Each one of us, you take the responsibility for your own doing. Didnt need to be reminded they are on their own way. So they have to prepare themselves. Every year, you have the institute for jobhunting and i encourage all students to find out what the Industry Needs and prepare themselves. That is their job to do. We need to take the first break on our program. We will be right back. Welcome back to the second part of todays program. We are continuing our conversation with professor kungyee liang, the president of Yangming University here in taipei to my taiwan. Let me ask you an issue regarding taiwans Higher Education and international competitiveness. You mentioned earlier that competition is coming from neighboring countries like mainland china, hong kong and singapore. Both in terms of recruiting top professional teaching talents and in terms of recruiting students. How do we in your opinion, how can we deal with this International Competition and make ourselves more competitive . Rex i think that is the important issue. One thing i learned about internalization, and i always struggle with what it means. Some people thinks some people think it means we have to travel abroad but thats not what it means. You can learn that if you stay in taiwan. Currently we have about 75 international students. The first thing i learned is that they are by themselves. They work together. They dont assimilate with domestic students. Theres not enough effort being made. After i come to yamane, after i come to Yangming University, i encourage domestic students to integrate with them. That has been making a great deal. There is an International Merit and ive talked to some domestic students who say working together i learned a great heel. How they will think differently, that is what this is about. You have to have those kind of viewpoints before you can think about the International Competition. Thats one thing i feel we need to clarify about this notion. You ask what we can learn, so in particular, we have a lot of Exchange Student programs. Encourage students to take a half year break. That is one thing to broaden your scope and different cultures. That is one thing that can be done. We are working on that. It is challenging in that we have eight undergraduate programs. Six of them need to be certified. If you go abroad for six months or do something similar to what you perceive, you are going to get behind. I encourage them. You are young. One year behind means little to you. Its not that much. In return, if you have a chance to study and go abroad and rotted your scope, that is something really worth it. We are trying to do more. We encourage our students to attend the international conference. Thats another thing that hopefully they can integrate with as far as students or scholars. Also, we establish collaborations with the leading universities in other countries. Thats an example with ucsd in california san diego, which is one of the top programs in engineering and medicine in particular. So we have a symposium every year. Once a year, we will be in taiwan. One year we will be there. We do a rotation for two months. We have five students every year. It is eyeopening for them. They can see how other students in their country, how hard they are working. So they are not complaining anymore and also we have joined a Research Program funded by the National Science council with the hope that we will make our centers for medical science one of the best in the world. Given these rogue grams yamane has been doing, do you think yamane and other prominent universities in taiwan are on the right track in terms of the global trend of Higher Education question mark more International Collaboration . More students visiting different universities for a semester or for a full year. These are the things indicating taiwans Higher Education is making adjustments and the adjustments are putting taiwan on the right track. I think so, but lets put things in perspective. I am more familiar with the situation in the United States. The current environment is such that they are facing a serious financial crisis. So there are a lot of cuts in terms of salary and budgetary support. They have become more protective and conservative and they have less foreign students prepare compared to the past area that is one trend i have noticed. The other thing is with the advancement of hightech, conventional classroom teaching is subject to challenge. Now with hightech, we do something different. You take your courses, make them available worldwide online. That is another trend ive noticed and i think taiwan is doing that as well. But i want to make a point on that. Maybe i am more conservative than other people. I think that kind of arrangement is very helpful and i see examples of that and the students benefit from such an arrangement. Id like to think especially for a medical education, theres no substitute for the interpersonal interactions. Theres something to be said about having face to face discussion, i to eye contact. Those kinds of things to me should not be replaced altogether. So this is what i see and i like to think we in taiwan are embracing that. I believe we are on the right track. If it is any consolation, you are not conservative at all because i agree with your viewpoint. I think there are same there are some things that cannot he replaced by online education. There are still the needs for people to meet in person and show a sense of commitment in the subject areas they are pursuing. Exactly. Talking about international competitiveness, we often discuss the issue of whether we should have more English Teaching courses in taiwan. That has been the trend in the last few years. In your view, since you have been teaching in the United States for many years, and in taiwan also, is that one of the things that can help Taiwanese University students become more competitive . By having more courses taught in english . I think it would help. Not at the pace some people would like to see. We have an International Health program in place more than 10 years ago and ive checked quite a few students in south america and asia as well. They are coming to pick up the notion of Public Health and return to the country afterward. Eventually, they become the leader in health service. That is one of them. Maybe i am conservative. I think its good to have such an arrangement for but not at the expense of quality teaching. To me, the first thing is to make sure we have good quality and teaching in general before we come into English Teaching. There are some of the International Exchange or grams. Do you sense it is more encouraged or more motivated to pursue a semester or year of a Foreign Institution in taiwan . In Yangming University, slowly. It will take time. You need to be licensed, so it is difficult. The mindset needs to be changed. Im encouraging parents as well to meet with the parents of freshman and remind them of this opportunity that they need to look for the longterm and childrens will be benefited from such an experience. We need to take another break at our program and we will be right back. Welcome back to this part of the program. I am your host, wu raykuo. We are continuing our conversation with repressor kungyee liang, the president of Yangming University in taipei, taiwan. We understand you studied in the United States and getting your phd from the diversity of washington aimed at biostatistics. You have been coming back to taiwan as a member of the Academic Senate and you felt Taiwan National university, the college of Public Health, to establish a program on biostatistics in the 1980s. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience or process . Sure. As a background information, i got my degree in 1882. Ever since then, ive returned to taiwan every summertime hoping i can share what i have learned, some state of knowledge with the research in taiwan. Biostatistics was very new at that time. So we have been holding several different workshops, hoping we can share our knowledge in taiwan. In 1993, there was a new college starting in Public Health. I spent a year helping to establish the program. Some of the students have become members and they are doing extremely well. Some study abroad and a couple went to hopkins and wanted to become my students. So that was a good experience to have. I think its a discipline in it provides a tool to help scientists interpret and analyze data. That was quite challenging and it takes different skills than one thought about. When i first came to the state, i never heard the word biostatistics. In 1996, i was appointed the first graduate program director. At that time, many people, many students were interested in pursuing a degree, so i got an email from the students i am weak in biology, can i pursue a statistics western mark can i join the program . That was one of the best programs in the world. So i give the one line answer that we are looking for strong quantitatively with interesting signs. That is what we are looking for and weve been getting a lot of students all over the world. Some of which have returned to his taiwan since then. You were having such a wonderful career in the United States. For faster of Johns Hopkins university, one of the leading universities