Due to the “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) further spreading, Tamkang University (TKU) has reiterated that TKU will do its best to prevent offshore epidemic disease from entering Taiwan and has stopped all faculty members to travel to epidemic- danger areas such as Mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore for academic exchanges, effective immediately.

One should submit a report in detail to the Ministry of Education for approval in case one must go due to the business demand.

TKU has been very concerned to the blockage of Heping Hospital and Soochow University and Cardinal Tien Nursery School halting classes due to the SARS spreading. The fumigation carried out all campuses during Spring holiday. TKU President Chang Horng-jinh has instructed that all the academic exchanges programs with Mainland China should be temporarily delayed.

In related news, academic exchange programs have been drastically decreased because of SARS. Dr. Lily H.M. Chen, Director of International Exchange and International Education (IEIE), said that the number of foreign visitors has remarkably decreased in April and said that only two group of foreign visitors visited TKU in the past two weeks.

Chen said that many foreign guests have cancelled or postponed their schedule to visit TKU. In the past 14 days, only two academic groups of Costa Rica and the Great Britain visited TKU Campus. Moreover, Curtin University of Technology at Perth in Australia has cancelled signing an academic cooperation project scheduled for the end of March, which affected very much on academic exchanges. The project has been halted due to SARS, Chen said.

Many colleges have faced the same destiny. Department of Physics under College of Sciences has stopped several important seminars as a result of absence of key foreign lecturers. Facing the same situation, Department of Chemistry has cancelled lecturing tour of Alumnus Prof. Chu Chih-chang and his wife and Prof. Toru Yamada of Keio University of Japan scheduled to be held in April and in May, respectively.

Department of Civil Engineering was also another victim of SARS. Prof. Cheng Chii-ming has organized an eight-member delegation to visit Mainland China for the academic exchange of wind tunnel experimental program. The original schedule could not but halt until this summer vacation. A lecture given by a professor from U.S. last week was also cancelled.

The Seventh Academic Seminar on Literature and Culture co-sponsored by Department of Chinese, TKU and Xuzhow University of Mainland scheduled to be held in mid-April has been postponed until next academic year. The first Taiwan-U.S.-Canada International Conference on Sinology scheduled to be held on July 3-4 has temporarily halted. Department of International Trade has halted its plan to visit universities in Jilin and Szezhuan, mainland China scheduled to be held in April and College of Management has postponed two seminars scheduled to be held in April and May to November and December, respectively. Chen Po-chang, Director of Center for the Study of Higher Education has cancelled his plan to take part in seminar in Mainland China. Prof. Wu Cheng-dar of Graduate Institute of Educational Policy and Leadership was still assessing his plan to lead a group of students to take part in seminars in Mainland China scheduled to be held in August.

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