News--Welcome to National Chiayi University

　　The College of Humanities and Arts, National Chiayi University, is a combination of the two major domains including “humanities” and “art.” It consists of five departments of Chinese Literature, Foreign Languages, Applied History, Visual Arts and Music, as well as two affiliated units including the Center of Humanities and Arts, and Taiwan Culture Research Center. The college nurtures outstanding talents who pursue excellence and innovation, skills and ethics, whole-person development, social concern, cultural awareness and global vision. To encourage students to learn with a global perspective, the college has signed MOU cooperation agreements with Okayama University and Tokushima University in Japan, University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, Communication University of China in Beijing, Lubeck Academy of Music in Germany, which is one of the sister schools of NCYU, among others. Student exchange programs, visits and exhibitions are organized on an annual basis. All these are expected to pave the path for their future career in international cultural education, artistic creation, drama performance and other fields. Over the years, the NCYU Musical Troupe, NCYU Arts Festival, International Conference on Chiayi Research, for example, have become representative art and cultural events in the Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan region. They are expected to exert a deep influence on the local humanistic literacy and development of history and culture.

Teachers and Students Engaged in Interdisciplinary Learning: Paving Way for Students’ Careers through Synergy
　　The teachers of the college are dedicated to interdisciplinary projects and, for the NCYU Department of Chinese Literature, writing is no longer just talking on paper. Combining literature with agriculture, “Planting the Future of Agriculture in the Story Field” is a topic-oriented, cross-faculty curriculum development plan with a focus on narrative innovation. Innovative courses are offered to promote a interdisciplinary teacher community in response to the pivotal issues of food and agriculture, and food safety. By promoting cooperation between professionals in humanities and food and agriculture, they hope to facilitate innovative development in cultural and creative agriculture and enhancefuture competitiveness through synergy. The faculty of the Department of Foreign Languages excels in English teaching at the elementary school level, English writing teaching and cross-cultural studies, application of AR/VR or board games in English teaching, development of digital assessment test of Hokkien and Chinese vocabulary, metaphor research on people with autism, teaching Chinese as a second language, and studies on sentence meanings, among others. In response to the progress of digital technology trends, they are devoted to facilitating interdisciplinary humanities, cultural and creative development, and CLIC English teaching via digital methods. For instance, digital technology, e.g., the Python and Scratch programs, data science and big data, are used in the classroom to enhance students’ learning effectiveness. The Music Department offers “Performing Arts and Marketing Talent Cultivation and Social Feedback Program,” and the unprecedented interdisciplinary “Musical Theatre Production Program.” It provides a theater learning platform to non-music students through the “musical theater” performance, characterized by a multi-artistic theatrical form with various artistic skills. In conjunction with the policy of the Ministry of Education (MOE), the teachers of the Department of Visual Arts have been promoting the “Interdisciplinary Aesthetic Education Excellence Pilot Program” and “Performing Arts and Marketing Talent Cultivation and Social Feedback Program” to promote life education with a focus on aesthetic education.

Department of Chinese Literature
　　The Department of Chinese Literature is dedicated to passing on the Chinese academic culture, and cultivating students with academic knowledge of Chinese and Taiwanese literature, solid humanistic literacy and critical thinking. It is committed to training new-age professionals in Chinese with a solid background in humanities and necessary skills in technology, as well as the ability to put theory into practice. Each year, the teachers and students work together to organize international academic seminars where students may exchange ideas with international scholars, thus promoting an atmosphere of academic research. The “Journal of Chinese Literature of National Chiayi University” is published to explore Chinese literature and culture. They also hold the NCYU Modern Literature Award, Brave Literature Award, Chinese Night Graduation Play, which provide a stage for students to perform and unleash their creativity. In addition to professional courses, the department offers practical courses to train professionals who meet workplace demands. The practical courses include “News Editing and Interview, “Theatre Practice,” “Reporting Literature,” “Modern Poetry Creative Writing,” “Script Writing,” “Cultural and Creative Practice,” “Digital Editing and Publishing,” etc. These are expected to help reduce the education-job mismatch. After graduation, the students may seek jobs in such fields as supplementary education and publishing. They may also work as editors, screenwriters, or work civilian jobs at government agencies or others.

Department of Foreign Languages
　　The Department of Foreign Languages, which focuses on training students with an interest in “English teaching” or “applied foreign languages,” consists of the English Teaching Group and Applied Foreign Language Group. The English Teaching Group is dedicated to enhancing students’ English theoretical foundations and communication skills, as well as learning and application of pedagogy. It also nurtures the abilities to teach English with the assistance of digital technology and board game design. Students who have passed the qualification as a prospective teacher, completed the professional courses offered by the teacher training programs, and met the relevant regulations stipulated by the MOE may have the chance to become English teachers in national elementary or junior high schools in the future. They may also serve as English teachers in private educational institutes or as copywriters with professional foreign language abilities in the industry, or work at English-language publishers. The Applied Foreign Language Group is devoted to cultivating students’ professional skills in English (or foreign) language communication, business communication and translation. In addition to improving their English skills, the students may also take second foreign language (Japanese/French) and business courses. The comprehensive training is expected to enable the students to work in the transportation services sector, or serve as speech therapists, translators, trade marketing specialists, etc., after graduation. As language is the key to the world, a good command of foreign languages would allow you to explore the subtleties of the world from a more profound perspective. The MOE has been offering grants for students to carry out student exchanges, teaching internships and other programs at universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and other countries on an annual basis. The objective is to strengthen students’ ability to learn in an international environment. The department boasts a faculty with a wealth of expertise, ranging from linguistics, English teaching, and British and American literature. They have been engaged in a wide spectrum of cooperation projects with foreign institutions. In recent years, they have signed agreements to carry out, for example, the MOE’s project to Strengthen Linkages within ASEAN and South Asian Countries, the EU’s ERASMUS International Academic Exchange, and