• Brief history
• Educational goals
• Learning core ability indexes
• Teaching philosophy
• Vision strategy
• Advanced goals

About Department

Brief history of the Department

The chemistry department was established in 1958 and is one of the oldest departments of chemistry in Taiwan. We receive a very good reputation either from academic or industry not only researches but also teaching philosophy to train our students toward to their careers. We briefly summarize our history during the past 60 years:

• In 1958, the department building was built when Tamkang College of English was renamed as Tamkang College of Sciences & Literatures. There were only two laboratories at that moment.
• In 1959, the building was remodeled to provide including more laboratories, a reagent room, a glass room, an instrument room, offices and a library.
• In 1967, the undergraduate offered two divisions (A and B). In order to accommodate more facility, the department building was rebuilt to a three-story building with an atrium.
• The graduate institute was officially approved by the MOE and founded in August 1971.
• In 1974, the undergraduate program offered degrees respectively in chemistry division and applied chemistry division. The goal for chemistry division’s curriculum was designed on the basis of pure chemistry training. However, the curriculum of applied chemistry division required students to take credits of on polymer chemistry and unit operation.
• In 1976, the chemistry department established Ph.D program which was the third PhD program in chemistry right after NTU and NTHU in Taiwan. Also the department spent more than ten million NTD to build a new building to connect the old four-story building.
• Tamkang university and chemistry alumni supported four hundred million NTD to rebuild the old Chung-ling Chemistry Hall. The new building was a seven-story, twelve thousand square feet space and completed in November 1999. It was one of the most prestigious and modern building among the chemistry departments in Taiwan.
• Both the chemistry division was renamed as chemistry and biochemistry division and the applied chemistry division was renamed as material chemistry division in 2003. Our intention was to track the word trend researches in biotechnology and material chemistry.
• In 2005, the graduate enrolled in group A was for chemistry or applied chemistry major, and group B was for non-chemistry or non-applied chemistry major.
• In 2009, the graduate institute was reorganized groups A and B into chemistry division and biochemistry division, respectively. The chemistry division was designed for graduate students whose majors were chemistry-related. The biochemistry division was designed for graduate students whose majors were natural science.

The chemistry department was fully supported by school board for many years. We have more than six thousand alumni and established a well-known reputation not only in academia but also in industry in Taiwan.

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Educational philosophy

Chemistry is an essential part of the progress of natural science. Our educational philosophy is to educate our students in contribution to the country and society, include:

1. Impart knowledge

   To teach students with fundamental chemistry knowledge and apply these knowledge in biochemical and material areas.

2. Educate students with independent thinking

   Students possess independent thinking learning from a variety courses and experiments. Therefore, our students will possess certain characters in chemistry an relate areas.

3. Promote students with ability of expression

   Regarding to the needs of profession and change, students learn how to give an expression learning from the journal club.

4. Educate students with good skill in experiments.

   Experiments are to prove the theories. We lay the foundation for students in research with a solid training through experiments.

5. Discipline in self-management

   Learning through different courses to educate student with discipline in self-management. They will be adapted to the professional atmosphere.

6. To educate students with a long-term learning ability

   We promote students with strong motivation in courses. We in sure students possess a long-term leaning ability.

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Learning core ability indexes of students

Our main responsibility is to train students with technological talents for the society. Students in chemistry department shall possess the following basic training before they graduate:

1. Possess with the fundamental chemistry knowledge. We wish students to explore their knowledge to learn more in biochemistry, material chemistry and related areas.
2. Possess with the science knowledge such as mathematics and physics and apply them in related areas of chemistry.
3. We educate students with good oral presentation and thus they can possess with good communication skill.
4. We educate students with the ability of self-learning, self-management and establishing their career goals.
5. Possess with global views through the experience of intercultural exchange.
6. Possess with the characteristics of humanistic care and artistic appreciation from general education courses.
7. Learn more in advanced science from symposium and journal club.
8. Possess with good experimental skills for special topics and experiment courses.
9. Promote the ability in reading and searching information from journal club and internet sources.

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Teaching philosophy

Teaching content

• Experiment: students work independently in experiments to encourage them to practice their skills for further education or career.
• Special topic: students may take optional course of topic studies in senior years and enter laboratory under the direction of professors to study independent designing of experiment contents and procedure.
• Seminars: It’s a required course for Chemistry group and optional for Applied Chemistry group students. Professors in different fields will direct and train them to research for papers and data, and require them to give oral report individually.
• Teacher and student discussion session: teachers will have meetings with students every semester. The department chair will regularly have meetings with the chair of student association in order to understand students’ needs, proposing problems and discuss pros and cons.
• Lectures: Each semester, scholars and national experts of specific fields will be invited to the department to have lectures to provide students broader views.

Teaching philosophy

• The department provided a curriculum including general chemistry, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, and instrumental analysis experiments for undergraduates. Except for instrumental analysis experiments, which are working with three persons in a group, the rest experiments are conducted by individual students in order to train their skills in independent operation.
• “Topic research” is an optional course. The senior students may take under the supervision of professors. In this course, they learned how to design experiment contents and procedures.

Vision Strategy

 

1. Collaboration with chemistry departments in Taiwan to build a college-level chemistry experiment database.
2. Connecting the interdisciplinary courses of material and biological technologies, which are important for the new century. We consider it that textbooks on chemistry experiments should include interdisciplinary “integrated experiments,” coordinating with basic skills of research laboratory of chemistry and high-tech industrial applications.
3. Chemistry database can provide the need of domestic colleges for chemistry, chemical engineering, and professional industrial education. Our goal is developing interdisciplinary chemistry courses as the basis for developing the advanced technological program in college fundamental education.
4. We aim at developing general education in chemistry and media to enhance the scientific cultivation in college level basic education.
5. We encourage public chemistry education and multi-media instruction to promote scientific literacy.
6. International communication agents training program.
• We use fund raising and subsidy from extra-curriculum academic institutes to encourage and support graduate students to go abroad for participating in academic activities for example, short-term visit, cooperating with researches, and attending conferences in order to elevate the level of research of our faculty, broaden the prospects of our graduate students and, consequently, enriched the quality of their theses.
• We accept foreign students’ applications and post-doctoral researchers.
• Provide information of international conference and subsidy and encourage them for application.

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Advanced goals

1. Advanced education

   Recently, more than half of the undergraduate graduating students continue their education in domestic graduate institutes or pursue further education abroad. Student from master program choose to go abroad for PhD or stay in domestic PhD programs.

2. Career goals

   Most graduates in chemistry department pursue their careers in the industries or academic institutes. The alumni perform outstanding achievements. Currently, our alumni serve in government, colleges, and private companies. Many of them are entrepreneurs.

3. Further education and career counseling

   We invite alumni from abroad to have a talk for introducing scientific advances once a while. On the day of school festivals, we invite our alumni to return for reunion, sharing experience as well as fund raising

4. Alumni contact activities

   We invited alumni of department to attend the school festival and reunion party every year. Some of alumni provided scholarships to encourage students for their academic performance.