Mutual Help or Social Responsibility of Higher Education—A CJCU Experience

Chao-Hsing Huang,Chia-Lin Tu,Jing-Li Hong

doi:10.22158/wjer.v5n3p240

Abstract

In 2009, Typhoon Morakot caused severe damage to the mountains in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Laulong was one of the villages affected by the typhoon. While all the communities have made all the efforts to restore their infrastructure and livelihood, Laulong village has its unique mission to restore the history and culture of their own. The residents there identify themselves as “Tavorang Tribe”, whose ancestors were from other areas. After merging with other people, they are gradually losing their tribal language. They have come to realize that their traditional rituals and tribal history are at risk of extinction; thus, they have endeavored to preserve and reconstruct their heritage. Chang Jung Christian University (CJCU) has involved in reviving these areas after Morakot. The Department of Applied Philosophy targets at this community as the educational field. The way to flip educational field requires taking students into the society. The purpose of this paper is to share the teaching experience of the past and students’ learning outcomes. It will introduce how a university tried to utilize resource from the government to work with a community while claiming to fulfill its social responsibility, but in fact, both actually received mutual benefits by executing this project.

Highlights

In recent years, higher education in Taiwan focuses on educational transformation and emphasizes industrial and academic combination
In the subject of community common good, Chang Jung Christian University (CJCU) Centre for Social Empowerment cooperated with local governments in southern Taiwan and opened a social work program with Kaohsiung City Government for disaster-affected areas after 2009 Typhoon Morakot
Our Road for the Mile Under the name of USR project, this article centers on the cooperation of CJCU and Taivoan in Laulong community, presenting the interactive experience between the community, teachers and students involved in this project

Summary

Introduction

Higher education in Taiwan focuses on educational transformation and emphasizes industrial and academic combination. Ministry of Education of the Republic of China has come up with an industry-academia collaboration or social enterprise executive project aiming to strengthen the connection between universities and local areas. Based on the project design of Ministry of Education, the USR issues proposed by universities can be divided into local compassion, industrial linkage, sustainable environment, food safety, long-term care and other social undertakings, etc. Long before the Ministry of Education’s USR project, Chang Jung Christian University has already started its college social responsibility plan with caring for vulnerable groups, environmental sustainability, community common good as the three main subjects of execution. Taking the budget limit of the Ministry of Education and university Self-funded Budget, teachers and students who could be mobilized, current relation between CJCU and the local areas into consideration, CJCU’s first year

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Conclusion