The General Education Center was established at Aug. 1997 and focuses on the integration of humanistic education into general education curriculum. It is hoped that based on the core “Humanistic Spirit” course of General Education, and through learners’ experience and reflection, students will be consciously aware of themselves, understand nature, respect others, care for life, and enhance their humanistic spirit.
The curricula structure of General Education Center includes three study areas under each major study category which are Natural Sciences and Application, Social Sciences, Liberal Arts, and category amounting to a variety of minor study areas which cover Literature, Social Science, Natural Science, Aesthetics,Phycial Education), and Innocation. Under the guidance of the above concepts, the General Education Center expects to cultivate students to have a view of life, a life-loving sentiment, and a sense of mission.
It is hoped that through the cultivation of humanistic spirit education, students will be guided to create a rational, healthy, and prosperous life with a sound mindset. Through offering different general educational courses, the principle of General Education has been settled as:
1. Enabling students to improve language comprehension and expression abilities to enhance communication and coordination skills.
2. Enabling student to develop the ability to think critically, solve problems independently, and prepare for future career development.
3. With the cultivation of history, democracy, and the rule of law, the foundation for students to participate in civil society is laid.
4. Through aesthetic education, students are inspired to pursue the value and meaning of life.
The school was founded on the basis of medical and nursing schooling. Through the development of Nursing Colleges, Medical Colleges, and Technical Colleges, it has been upgraded to a University of Science and Technology. For more than 40 years, our school has been committed to technical and vocational education, providing grass-roots talents and backbone cadres for the construction and development of the country without any slack. Upholding the educational philosophy, it is all about cultivating a well rounded people by intgrating knowledge, morality and living ability as a whole. It is true that the school is established to teach applied science and technology as well as to cultivate high-level practical professionals” combining broad-minded and macroscopic vision. To help students think, analyze, and judge independently, so as to nurture their ability for life-long learning; as a result, to develop a good understanding of humanity, society and continuous care for the environment and enthusiasm for service; and can cooperate with others to establish a new civilization, new value and order for the future of human society. This is the fundamental philosophy of our school, our unshirkable social responsibility.
In order to implement the concept of holistic education, our school not only devotes itself to the development of students’ expertizes, but also commits to the implementation of General Education. This is because the school has a deep understanding of the overall education physique and direction of the country at the current stage. Without doubt, It constantly achors on the close collaboration between specialized education and General Education to form a comprehensive professional talents, which is in line with the school’s motto of combining science and technology with humanities.
The design of the conceptual framework of General Education in this school, as the academician Kuo-Shu Yang of the Academia Sinica pointed out in the article ‘The Idea and Practice of the University’: General education ‘emphasizes the wholeness, accessibility, speculation and conceptual holistic education’. It is considered by Professor Chun-Chieh Huang of National Taiwan University in his book ‘The Idea and Practice of University General Education’: ‘an education that establishes the subjectivity of a person and makes the person and the objective world in which he lives mutually subjective. General Education in this sense is actually the so-called holistic education in contemporary Chinese and foreign educational circles. In the similar vein, the school especially considers the founding spirit of the university education and constantly follows the teaching philosophy to determine the general education philosophy structure of the school.
General education should especially focus on humanities education. As far as the connotation of humanities education is concerned, we believe that human life temperament can be divided into three dimensions: ‘honesty, tolerance, and depth’. Honesty refers to an unsophisticated and simple temperament that a person has been trained scholarly in spirit. Tolerance refers to the ability of a person to expand the space of life, to understand the past and the present, to know the reasons for the rise and fall, not to settle for short-sighted views; not to act in the present or self-interest, but to point out the long-term path in the future. Depth means that people are able to exercise philosophical thinking, contemplate the essence of life, and have the ability to think independently and value judgments, which ultimately gain faith in life. The cultivation education of these three is actually the cultivation education of humanistic literacy. The development of humanistic literacy is not a person who can achieve overnight. We must have a long-term plan wihtout resosrting to short cut because only ‘patience works wonder.’ To immerse students in within wihtout knowing it, so as to achieve the underling effects.
The General Education Center of our school takes humanities education as the core, and hopes to use the core value of ‘humanities spirit’ curriculum to arouse students’ consciousness through ptactical experience and reflection, so as to understand selves, nature, respect others, care for life, and improve students’ humanistic literacy. In terms of subcategories of General Education courses, students need to take three General Education courses in the three categories i.e. Natural Sience and Application Science, and Social Science, and Liberal Arts, based on the principle of broad academic vision. Under the guidance of this concept, the goal of General Education is to cultivate students with a comprehensive outlook on life, a sentiment to care for life, and a sense of mission. It is hoped that through the cultivation of humanistic quality, students will be guided to create a rational, healthy and prosperous life with a sound attitude.
The General Education committee of this school specifies the goals of General Education in this school as follows:
1. An accessible outlook on life
2. Concerned sentiment
3. Have a mission with a sense of mission
We hope that through the promotion and implementation of General Education, students can be integrated and ambitious in terms of knowledge, morality , justice, or human feelings; face the joys, sorrows, joys, sorrows and joys of life, and even the gains or losses of fame and fortune. They can be open-minded, do not ask for nothing, and know everything about themselves, and can always stand up to others. We also hope to cultivate students with compassion. Not only can they take care of others, society, life, and the environment with empathy of drowning and hungry, they can also practice and contribute actively. After entering the workplace, the students took every career as a lifelong career and worked hard, with a sense of mission to do their best to benefit the country and the people.