Once again, it is spring at NTU and the beautiful, colorful azaleas are in full bloom! In this issue, we are delighted to report that construction on two large green buildings at NTU—Liberal Education Classroom Building and the Environmental Research Building, is completed. And, they are fully operational. The idea to build Liberal Education Classroom Building was hatched in 2007, when the effort to improve general education courses and common courses at NTU was stymied by the shortage of lecture halls that could seat 120 or more and small classrooms that could seat 20, so we rolled up our sleeves and went to work to design a large instructional hall. Named “Liberal Education Classroom Building” by NTU faculty and students, the building was officially inaugurated. The grand event in Asia/Pacific higher education, the APAIE 2011 Annual Conference, was held in Taiwan for the first time March 9-12 at NTU. Over 800 university presidents, deans and top level administrators and international affairs personnel, domestic and foreign, attended the Annual Conference. The Conference agenda included paper presentations and displays, university president round table forums, workshops, special topic discussions, and guided tours of universities in central and southern Taiwan. Also, an International Higher Education Exhibition was held on March 12 where college and high school students could obtain first-hand information on study overseas. Dr. Kenichi Ohmae, an internationally renowned guru on megatrends, delivered a speech at the Conference.

As to recent research achievements at NTU: Intel worked closely with NTU to set up the Connected Context Computing Center in order to R&D the futuristic M2M(machine to machine) technology; an interdisciplinary NTU research team developed a new drug for treating asthma; our bio-medical personnel developed a multi-functional portable instrument called VsensorNTU to instantly diagnose viruses or cancers –a worldshaking breakthrough; and a Department of Entomology paper appeared in the journal Science on the study of imported red fire ants, to mention just a few. In addition, 26 NTU professors were honored with National Science Council's Outstanding Research Award, Professors Dr. Tei-Wei Kuo and Dr. Chih-Jen Lin were elected to become IEEE Fellows, and Professor Hungdah Su was awarded EU's Jean Monnet Chair, etc.

In sum, this issue of the NTU Newsletter has a number of fascinating reports. Do take the time to read it through.