A Christian accrediting organization in the US is considering Taiwan's Christ's College (CC) as a candid-ate for full accreditation. Diplomas issued by the college to its grad-uates are still denied recognition by the Ministry of Education (MOE).
Scott Hovater, the newly elected director of the college's English Department, told the Taipei Times that three members of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) in the US will visit CC for an inspection and make a recommendation on whether the school should be granted full accreditation.
Hovater was also appointed as a TRACS self-study director to write a critical report on the college.
Upon receiving and authorizing the report, the TRACS office reviewed the study and is now sending a team for a final exam-ination of the college's standards.
"If approved, CC would receive full accreditation in April of 2006," Hovater said.
"As far as I know, we will be the first college in Taiwan to receive accreditation from an accrediting agency in the US," he said.
The college is registered as a "religious school" under the Ministry of the Interior instead of the education ministry.
Requests denied
For the past decade, the ministry had been denying the college's requests to be registered and recognized, saying that it is a religious school which hopes to reserve the right to select its own faculty members and students.
In addition, the education ministry requires that more than half of a college's board must be Taiwanese citizens. The majority of CC's board used to be US cit-izens, but Hovater said that this situation has changed.
Hovater said that too many colleges and not enough students may be another serious concern for the MOE when considering recognizing CC or not.
"The MOE is under pressure to limit the number of institutions it can register. Our argument is that we fill a special need [providing a Christian liberal-arts education, which does not exist elsewhere in Taiwan] and we also pledge to have no more than 1,500 students. Being a small school and fulfilling a need should make the ministry favor our application," Hovater said.
Ministry regulations further stipulate that a college must be situated on 5 hectares of land, and the school currently possesses only 3.2 hectares. CC has been arguing that the college will always be a small college with never more than 1,500 students and so they do not need 5 hectares of land.
Land plan
However, the school eventually compromised and is purchasing land in Sanchih Township (
"We had a meeting with the MOE on Nov. 23, but I am not yet sure whether the ministry will accept our land plan," Hovater said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh
RSS