It is now the end of the year. Last month (November, 2010), we celebrated the 82nd anniversary of the founding of our university. All members of the NTU community heartily welcomed this day of special historical significance.

Over the past five years, with the support of Ministry of Education’s Aim for top University Plan, NTU underwent the most rapid period of development in its history and launched a comprehensive overhaul of its software and hardware infrastructure. Next year, the second phase of the Aim for top University Plan will commence, and we shall continue to develop our university around the following five themes of concern: sublimating and appreciating culture; digging deeply in basic academics; arranging the sustainable development of our society; rapidly developing our knowledge economy and high-tech capabilities; and enhancing our health care and quality of life. We will implement five following strategies to build up a first class research campus for our faculty and students: multidisciplinary learning in pursuit of excellence; recruiting top notch talents; strengthening university software and hardware infrastructure; promoting excellent and forward looking research; expanding the scale of our international cooperation and other necessary measures.

Using the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana as our benchmark, and in keeping with the government’s goal to cultivate six emerging industries, we have mapped out a plan to set up ten elite research centers. The goal is to enter the ranks of the top 50 universities in the world. Needless to say, international exchanges and cooperation are vital means toward reaching such a goal. We will embark on a strategic alliance relationship with MIT, as well as expand academic cooperation in various fields, invite advanced global companies such as INTEL, IBM to establish research centers on our campus, while at the same time encouraging our faculty to participate in the research programs of the famous universities of the European Union (such as FP7 or FP8). At present, we have 361 sister schools spread over 51 countries, and we have 37 dual degree programs and 3000 international students. And, according to our plans for the next three to five years, one third of our students will have the chance to engage in exchange studies at one of our sister schools during their four years of college life.

The Outstanding Alumni Award for this year was conferred upon nine alumni, including: Dr. Ralph T. Yang, Miss Teresa H. Meng, Mr. Robert Tsao, Dr. Jane Hsiao, Dr. Chih-Yuang Lu, Mr. Hong-tu Tsao, Mr. Yu Cheng, Dr. Frederic Chien, and Mr. Yu-Mei Chao Yu. We wish to extend our hearty congratulations to them for their outstanding achievements in academics, industry and commerce, social work and national construction. Their shining examples once again demonstrate our university motto to "cultivate integrity and learning, be patriotic and caring". On the occasion of the celebration the 82nd anniversary of the founding of our university, we will hold our hands closely together, exert our energy to pursue excellence, and make the utmost contributions to Taiwan and to the self-renewal of the human race.

Also, in step with the government’s policy to allow students from mainland China to study in Taiwan, we formed a strategic alliance with Peking University for the purpose of nurturing outstanding students to become the elite leaders of our societies. And, to increase the inter-collegiate exchanges and to enhance academic cooperation, we accepted an invitation from Peking University and launched the NTU DAY at Beijing on December 20th 2010. The activities of NTU DAY included a speech by NTU President Dr. Si-Chen Lee, the inauguration ceremony of our liaison office in Beijing, exchange between the administrative and academic units of the two universities, and, last but not the least, student forums and artistic performances by students. In return, it is expected to hold the Peking University Day on our campus next year so that through this brand new mode of cooperation and dialogue a new frontier for cross-strait academic exchange can be created.