Taskforce Meeting on Higher Education
United Board For Christian Higher Education In Asia
By Dr. Huang Po Ho
April 8-10, 2011, New York USA
University and Christian University
University as an institution of Higher education is understood as a mechanism for creation, transmission and application of knowledge. The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means “community of teachers and scholars.”[1] The modern universities are considered as institutions to grant degrees through academic activities of teaching, research, and scholarly services. In general speaking, higher education in most of the cases is considered as an important way for a society to develop professionalism and leadership for a community or a country. The institution to carry this higher education mission is generally called university or college. [2]
The modern higher education has subjected to the division of knowledge, implemented its mechanism of education not only through dividing its curricula and faculties into different specialized fields, thus there are different colleges or faculties entitled Art, Nature Science, Social Science, Medicine and technology, etc… Universities are also classified into different natures such as general university, technological university and other professional universities e.g. Military universities or medical universities. These professional titles crowned into the higher education institutes are though not without questions and critiques; however these critiques are mostly related to the division of truth and knowledge, never these titles questioned the nature of being higher education or in more precisely question on academic freedom.
Yet, when it comes to the Christian university, the debates have been sensitive and perplexing. Modern university was though launched in principle from Christian monastic, it has gone through a process of secularization and is today confronted a focal point of discussion on its adjective title of being a “Christian” university. The challenges are from two sides, while the right dissatisfied that Christian universities do not weight enough the mission of evangelism in Christian higher education, the left has suspected the Christian orientation of university may affects academic freedom in higher education. It is therefore, the question about the role of Christian university in the higher education and how and what are distinctive contributions that Christian universities can make to the higher education have drawn attentions widely. In responding to both sides challenges, Arthur F. Holmes while confirmed that the nature and task of a university must be on education, he proposed that “Christian colleges are distinct in that they cultivate ‘the creative and active integration of faith and learning, of faith and culture’ rather than allowing these arenas to fall into disjunction.”[3] In other words, Holmes is suggesting that like College of Liberal Art is doing liberal education, Christian university is doing Christian higher education.[4]
Christian University and Academic Freedom
One of the important concerns among the arguments pro and con to the religious orientation in higher education is the notion of academic freedom. This concept of academic freedom was first introduced by the “Constitution Habita” which was adopted by the University of Bologna, the first university in the world, to guarantee the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education.[5] This is today claimed to be the origin of “academic freedom”, which has characterized as an essential value of the higher education in modern society. The reason that the “academic freedom” has been taken so important for the higher education in democratic societies is because people believe that a college or university is a dedicated social place where a variety of competing claims to truth can be explored and tested, free from political interference. In other words, freedom to explore significant and controversial questions is an essential precondition to fulfill the academy’s mission of educating students and advancing knowledge.
The public concern and debates on “academic freedom” was an output generated from the process of secularization of university education in western world. The modern university which was launched in medieval period[6], has inherited its tradition from ancient Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools in which religious education was considered main purpose of the institutions. Many of these universities were either transformed from monastery or expanded from its faculty of theology. Seeing from this historical context, we may conclude that rooted in medieval period, the university as an institution was basically shaped and influenced by medieval Christian religion.
The fall of medieval curtain marked the end of the monastic model of education, the impacts of Enlightenment Movement has led to a division of intellectual and spiritual formation in education mechanism by the separation of the seminary from the monastery. Based upon the liberal idea of Friedrich Schleiermacher, the early European universities were pertaining to the importance of academic freedom, seminars style of learning, and laboratory research.
It was until 19th century, Christian religion played a significant role in European university education activities, includes all aspects of finance, curriculum and personnel. However, a process of secularization was taken place in its development of university education in late 19th and 20th century. Higher education was thus, concentrated on science and engineering, and became increasingly accessible to the laity and masses. This process of secularization of university education in western world, though disappointed some scholars, was considered by some others, a process of liberation for higher education from the hand of clergies and from the domination of church. C. John Sommerville summarizes from different scholars arguments and classified secularization of higher education into five understandings, i.e., secularization of society, secularization of institutions, secularization of activities, secularization of populations, and secularization of mentalities.[7] And he points out that many scholars use some combination of these understandings, often without distinguishing between them. For instance, James Nichols in his “History of Christianity 1650–1950: Secularization of the West”, describes secularization as “emancipation both from clerical control and from a religious orientation.”[8] The concept of “academic freedom” derived from this context, thus indicating the independence of a university from all forms of manipulation or control of academic researches and activities, which may comes from religious communities; in today’s commercial orientated society, they are mostly from governments or stake holders.
The process of secularization does making contribution to the academic freedom but not all aspects of secularization contributed positively, along with this process of secularization there are cases been taken into extreme, and thus creates an impression of religious phobia or anti-religious sentiment in education arena. George Marsden, for instance, after observation of higher education implementation in North America, begins the introduction to his book: “Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship” by asking some provocative questions about the role of religion in the academy: “Why are there in mainstream academia almost no identifiable Christian schools of thought to compare with various Marxist, feminist, gay, post-modern, African-American, conservative or liberal schools of thought?” and “What is it about the dominant academic culture that teaches people they must suppress reflection on the intellectual implications of their faith?”[9] In fact, Marsden’s own puzzlement with the answers to these questions led him to write one of the first major scholarly works discussing the secularization of American higher education: The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (1994).[10] He notes in the introduction to this work: “Since it is nowhere written in stone that the highest sort of human intellectual activity must exclude religious perspectives, it is helpful, I think, to consider how it came to pass that so many academics believe that such exclusions are part of the definition of their task.”[11] Accordingly, a genuine definition of academic freedom is the freedom for teachers to teach, and students to learn. As long as these freedoms are preserved (though these freedoms are not without limitation), the intellectual diversity includes religious perspectives must be sustained. Thus, to distinguish independent of education from religious manipulation and that of anti-religious education is important for the discourse of academic freedom for higher education.
Secularization of University Education in Asia
If the secularization process of university education taken place in western countries has in some way contributed to the academic freedom of higher education, it happened as different story in Asia and I suppose in some other parts of the world as well. As aforementioned, the secularization process happened in western countries was a struggling for higher education to be independent from the religious domination in order to be able to explore freely the truth and nature of knowledge. While in Asia, the history of the university education is developed with a different path. Though higher education in some of the Asian countries was launched centuries ago, the modern style of university education was mainly introduced from the west and mostly within last two centuries. It was however, these European institutes when introduced to Asia after 19th century, were in a condition that their secular formations were shaped, and they have been planted to the non Christian soil of Asia; these new introduced universities were mostly put under the governmental control, if not initiated as the state universities. The earliest universities in Asia were established in India,[12] the Philippines[13], Japan[14] and China[15] some of them though existed since 17th century, their operation as the modern universities were all started from late 19th century. Some of these universities were though founded by Christian churches or missionaries; they were very soon put under the state regulations. Secularization in this context, thus, has different meaning of utilitarianism and pragmatism. Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU), one of the pioneer universities in Taiwan to advocate the so call “holistic education” has elaborated an overview to explain why this holistic education is needed and important in Taiwan’s educational circumstance, it says:[16]
For a long time in the evolution of human history and societies, man has been conditioned to be more observant to bodily experiences and things empirical. Although we have gained a significant understanding of the material world, we are less responsive – or rather more indifferent – to things immaterial. As a result, our world view has been reified and we have fallen prey to commodity fetishism. Therefore, we are more and more one dimensional– responsive only to materials and empirical experiences.
Unfortunately, our education system could not be exempted from this pernicious influence. Schools have become no more than a highly developed manufacturing unit. Students are like raw materials processed in the machine and churned out as identical commodities to be sold on the job market.
These paragraphs have accurately revealed the current phenomenon and problem of education, particularly higher education in Taiwan, and I believe it is very much in common in other Asian countries. The driven force behind this process of utilitarianism of higher education is of course the government’s policy of economic development. The traditional Confucius concept that takes education as an instrument for political domination has fostered this phenomenon deepening. The secularization process of higher education in Asia which has detached from the struggles of western historical experience thus, has no association with the concept of academic freedom; instead, it has become a sign to denote the shift of philosophy of higher education from its seeking truth to seeking money.
Generally speaking, Asian universities derived from their relatively short history and surrounding non-Christian social environment, are experiencing different sort of secularization, that has taken further step to thrust the already secularized higher education imported from the west to a state of utilitarianism and fragmentation. The “University” is thus transfigured to “Multiversity”, which proposed a worldview either taking the natural world as all of reality (philosophical materialism), or denies the function and value of reason, authority, and truth. Higher education is therefore simply taken as a tool or device to attain human desires. Secularization which in some degree regarded “emancipation” for higher education in the west has in Asia pressed again the higher education under the manipulations of all sorts of powers. There are at least three areas of threat to the autonomous of higher education that can easily be identified from my experiences in Taiwan’s higher education system:
1) Political interference: Governments may not put their fingers directly to the curricula, personnel and administrations, yet these are mostly subjected to governmental approval. Most of governments will exercise their sways indirectly through control the size of school (numbers of students and disciplinary departments), the fees pay by the students and as well financial subsidies that the government to award to the individual universities. Since these factors are decisive for the survival of a university, particularly the private universities, they are very effective instruments for the government to manipulate university education.
2) Distorted accreditation mechanism: university accreditation has been important for the quality assurance of higher education in any given context. It is however, the accreditation philosophy behind and mechanism designed for the activities are inevitably playing a serious role to guide or even drive the universities’ education directions. While accreditation implementation is not formatted through a democratic way, but is exercised under the governmental power, it easily falls into an instrument of control.
3) Unjust distribution of the education resources: Private universities are treated differently and subordinately in compare to national universities in many of the Asian countries in terms of resource distribution done by their governments. While the size of school, numbers of disciplinary departments, fees from the students are all under strict control (in Taiwan’s case), the governmental subsidy become desirable resource for a university to develop its particular characters. It is however, the uneven distribution of the educational resources from the government in discrimination to the private universities, has created a severe injustice situation that the poor to pay more for their own education and meanwhile shoulder through their tax to support the rich to enjoy deduction of their education expenditures.[17] Meanwhile, those Giant enterprises invested private universities are tend to be commercialized and subjected to the interest of the companies.
The Role of Christian University in the Midst of Asian Universities
Many Christian universities in Asia were established among the first batch of modern higher education institutes that have existed in Asia. However, because of the domestic legal regulations, almost all Christian Universities are though different in degrees, put under the governmental regulation in different Asian countries, and thus struggling to define their identity of being a Christian University. The Association of Christian Universities and Colleges in Asia (ACUCA), a regional association for Christian higher education in Asia with 56 member institutions, has spelled out its rationale of the organization through the following 4 statements[18]:
1. The majority of the membership operate without the benefit of public subsidy. The mounting costs of education necessitate efficiency and effectiveness in managing and allocating the limited resources of the non-profit member-institutions. A need arises for exchange of management technology in order to optimize their capacity in higher education.
2. The educational and social contribution of the membership depends as well on the quality of their teaching staff. The test of the faculty in these institutions is not only in their mastery of the latest pedagogical and research techniques but also in their convincing commitment to the Christian dimension of education. Without this commitment, the Christian college or university is no longer any different from other institutions of higher learning.
3. The outputs of Christian higher education are a major concern of the member-institutions. How can we more or less assure that our graduates bring with them the duties as well as the joy of the Christian witness, to be shared by them with their colleagues in the professional world? How can we keep the Christian spirit alive in campus, with the maximum and willing participation of the students?
4. Not of lesser importance is the members' responsibility to the surrounding community. It is the worry of the membership that involved as they are with academic excellence and administrative efficiency, they could forget the rationale behind the establishment of a Christian institution. The spectre of alienation from the rest of society as glaring enclaves of elitism is what haunts the member-institutions in developing countries. As it is the task of Christianity to be socially relevant, the membership finds the need to actualize their Christian character through outreach programs. There is much that the Association can do to promote exchange of skills and resources for community services.
From these rationales for a Christian higher education organization in Asia we are informed of three areas of concern that Christian education institutes are put forward for their strivings, these areas are: limit of education resources, quality assurance (process and output) for higher education with special concern of Christian distinctive, and socially relevant with the surrounding community of a university. With these concerns the association has further suggested the following mission statement[19]:
The mission of Christian higher education is, in general, to heal the divisions which separate man from man and to unite all men in the community of service and fellowship; This Christian mission impels us to train our students to assume the responsibility of developing the potentials of the underprivileged, the deprived, and the marginal poor; By pursuing the best of human knowledge possible for the purpose of making it available and accessible for healing the wounds of mankind in the Asian context, we have been blessed with some successes, due more to the force of God's saving power rather than to our own human efforts; Despite these successes, we are still confronted with problems that relate chiefly to finances and the need to maintain our Christian character, faced with the pressures of survival in a competitive and materialistic society.In another words, the ACUCA has stressed its distinct mission as Christian universities in healing and loving care to the wounds and underprivileged, the deprived and the marginal poor in order to maintain their Christian character in the competitive and materialistic context of Asia.
Christian Character of Higher Education
The desire of to maintain a Christian character for a Christian university in Asian context, can be understood as a lament of Christian universities for the losing of their identity and as well for the distortion of higher education mechanism that prevents the freedom for faith-dialogue scholarship. Thus, to strive for Christian Presence has become one of the essential tasks for Christian universities to regain their Christian identity and to make their distinctive contributions as most of their institutes were founded for.
As for the concerns on what constitutes the “Christian” character of a Christian university, opinions are diversified. In a speech delivered at Abilene Christian University for its centennial celebration, which was entitled “Christian Academe vs. Christians in Academe,” Kenneth C. Elzinga, the Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia proposed that Christian higher education does not start with Christian students, but should be dominated by a faculty who are followers of Jesus. He says, “The majority of faculty at a school of Christian higher education should be Christians. The institution makes no sense if that is not the case. Students are transients; they come and go, Christian higher education is defined by a core of faculty who believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:16), that every thought is to be made captive to Him and they are not ashamed of the gospel.”[20] Kenneth Elzinga argues that Christian Higher education should be radically different from the secular higher education. He says, Christian higher education should be defined primarily by differences in teaching, differences in credentialing, and differences in mentoring[21]. And he insists that the faculty is pivotal in each of these. No matter we agree or disagree with this definition, taking the reality of Christian population minority in most of Asian countries, there are not many Christian universities able to attain this condition, not to say many of the countries will not allow a religious discrimination in their employment policy. In fact, besides very few exceptions, most of the Christian universities in Asia are dominated in numbers by non Christian faculties. Though in most of the cases, their members of board of governors and the presidents are appointed from Christians.
An alternative model for Christian distinctive in Christian higher education has been proposed by the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (UBCHEA). The United Board has advocated the concept of “Christian Presence” for years, and adopted it as its mission to the enhancement of higher education in Asia through its Christian commitments.[22] In contrast to Elzinga, United Board has taken an inclusive position towards religious pluralism in higher education. In the preamble of its position paper, UB describes itself as “a Christian organization motivated by a commitment to Christian values, expressed through its venerable tradition of Christian higher education in Asia. Such expression takes place primarily, though not exclusively, through Christian institutions of higher education. The United Board refers to this expression of Christian values in higher education as Christian presence.”[23] The position paper goes on further to explain:
The work of the United Board embraces a rich variety of situations across Asia , where Christians are a minority. Given this situation, the expression of Christian presence attempts to be sensitive to the wider social, religious, and cultural contexts. Therefore … Christian values are articulated broadly as humane values that engage people of other faiths and of no religious faith, drawing a response from them that reflects their rich religious and cultural traditions….Christian presence is developed and implemented through encouraging collaboration and research among Asian institutions on vital issues in Asia . Such collaborative research and action empowers Asian leadership in higher education to address structures of injustice, to promote human community, and to care of the environment.[24]
Although the United Board has taken an inclusive position with its open-ended interpretation of the concept of “Christian presence,” it implicitly yet unmistakably affirms that Christian higher education possesses different features relative to secular higher education:
Christian higher education is the fostering of value-based leadership in administrators, faculty, and students, who will serve and contribute to understanding and justice in their societies. It is education that is also accessible to the less advantaged. Christian higher education is not exclusively by and for Christians, but is committed to Christian values: liberal and humane education; education of the whole person; moral development of students and faculty..., it is education that addresses social, human, and environmental issues… Christian higher education nurtures not only the formation of Christian students, but also the formation of students of other religious and cultural backgrounds, to understand their own religious tradition as well as the religious traditions of others.[25]
Contributions of the United Board towards the Christian Presence in Higher Education of Asia
Christian presence according to United Board is the presence of Christian value in all aspects of higher education activities with particular stress on issues of justice, human community and environment, rather than the presence of university structure and personnel. Considering the negative secular nature of higher education that confronted universities and colleges in Asia, this value-based presentation indeed demonstrates the distinctiveness of Christian characteristics of a Christian university in Asian context.
Over its almost 90 years history (The United Board was founded since 1922) United Board has strived to reach its mission of realizing Christian presence in higher education in Asia through two different strategies, which include:
1. Since 1922, The United Board has worked with colleges and universities in China and other parts of Asia[26], through funding even establishing Christian universities and building significant symbols such as distinct chapels in the university campuses, to promote a visible presence of Christian university among the higher education in Asia.
2. Through funding particular programs either proposed by partner universities or drawn personnel from partner institutes to attend programs implemented by the United Board to achieve the goal of human resource development.[27]
In order to respond to the changing context of Asia, United Board has commissioned a taskforce group to launch a process of study on the topic of “Common Challenges facing Christian Higher Education in a Globalized Economy.” The topic given for studies has revealed that United Board is seeking ways to carry forward its mission for Christian presence in Higher education in responding to the new context of Asia. If the past endeavors of Christian universities in the midst of higher education can be seen as an identity struggling to identify the differences and distinctiveness that Christian universities have comparing to the secular universities. The new task proposed here for the Christian presence in the higher education has shifted its focus from Christian identity struggling to the struggles of people in a new circumstance.
Globalization though has many faces and different meanings to our world today, when applied to the higher education in Asia; it has posted two sides of challenges to Asian Christian higher education, i.e., challenge to fulfill mission of higher education, and challenge to preserve academic excellence for higher education. In another words, under the impacts of globalized economy, higher education as a mechanism to develop human resource for the nations and society, is challenged to nurture and raise capable leadership in responding to the globalized economic society. Meanwhile, the changing context of globalized economy has its impacts on the higher education itself; when universities are gradually made a manufacturing unit, and students are taken as commodities to be sold on the job market. Christian presence in this context is no long a Christian matter, but matter of higher education.
Christian Presence in the New Context of Asian Higher Education
If the “Christian” title of a Christian university is to be taken as an adjective to indicate the educational objective of a university and not a noun that claim the ownership of an university, Christian presence in a higher education thus, should be characterized through its endeavors to nurture its students in a holistic way inclusive of education of life, living and livelihood (生命，生活，生計). In another word, the assertion of Christian presence in higher education has to do with a recapture of definition of the excellence of education. Higher education should not be restrained its educational mission only in intellectual activities, e.g., creation, transmission and application of knowledge. But have to advocate holistic educations that provide an open platform for faculty and students to explore freely the truth and reality which can integrate one’s worldview with his/her life attitude and professionalism coherently.
A holistic education therefore can not be restrained its loci of education only in the classrooms, but have to coordinate classroom with other living spaces within and even outside the campus, such as library, dormitory, chapel and off campus practical training institutions. In the other words, holistic education can not be understood as a comprehensive yet fragmentary education, but is a full and integral education that has taken a student as an integral whole. Christian presence in this educational context thus has to do with Christian value that generated from Christian worldview, ethics and commitment. The following proposals are attempts that Chang Jung Christian University[28] has strived over the years to communicate its Christian characters to its faculties and students and as well the wider circumstance of educational communities and society of Taiwan:
1) Loving community: Christian value put in any given context is manifested in loving care relationship. If university is a community of teacher and scholars as defined by the ancient Latin idea, a Christian university must demonstrate its Christian character in the harmonious and loving fellowship in the community. Modern universities have stressed on intellectual activities that were made up in divisions which splits a community, and reduces universities to but an intellectual competing battle field. Christian leaders in an university are thus responsible to a community building for its faculties and staff through their exercise of leadership and administrations, and which of course will be extended to the loving care of their students.
2) Meditative educational environment: education can not rely only through languages and human interactions. In fact those unsaid in the process of education are most of time said louder than those being said to the students. To intentionally design and construct a meditative environment with symbols of the spirit of the university can be considered as a silent message to invite faculties and students to engage in dialogues.[29] The chapel in Tunghai university of Taiwan for instance enacts tremendous impacts to its faculties and students, and convey clear image of the university to the society.
3) Implementation of holistic education through well designed liberal education in collaboration with administrative units of the university: liberal education was named differently in different universities, such as liberal art education or general education.[30] Nevertheless this unit of education has been considered a either supplementation or coordination to the departmental divisions of disciplines and professions. In another word, liberal education in modern higher education is designed with an attempt to heal and reconcile the problem of division and fragmentation of knowledge and education. It is an important arena for Christian universities to elaborate the founding spirits and Christian values for the education. Chang Jung Christian University for instance has designed under the liberal education unit the basic values that Christians committed to, for example require courses of athletics, music, service learning and ethics are implemented, and elective courses such as cross cultural awareness, environmental concerns etc. are offered to enhance a comprehensive higher education that cares for humanity and fundamental issues related to human existence.
4) Last but not least, to struggle for a common understanding of excellence of higher education through redefining the accreditation criteria. As current accreditation system has tremendous impacts to the university education, how can these accreditation criteria be formulated democratically and relevantly is an unsolved question. Regretfully most of the Christian values that Christian universities striving for are not to be countered credits if not to be considered negatives. It is therefore desirable that Christian universities in Asia to formulate together a common understanding of mission of Christian university in Asian higher education, and that if possible an international Christian university accreditation be instrumented to enhance the value and as well to balance the local accreditation from an international aspects, it will be certainly strengthening Christian university to stand firmly their commitment towards Christian presence in higher education.[31]
Conclusion
United Board has been a leading organization in company with Asian Christian universities in the striving for their identity and their searching for distinctive contributions of being a Christian university in Asia. I hope the current board and the leaderships of the United Board will continue to accompany its partner universities in Asia to achieve further Christian contributions to the people and societies of Asia through your rich working experiences, profound knowledge and strong commitment as well your rich resources both in materials and wisdoms. (Thank you very much
[1] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University, retrieved at Jan. 31, 2011
[2] Colleges are normally under university to carry different disciplinary of higher education, however, In some case, colleges are independent from university.
[3] Arthur F. Holmes, The Idea of a Christian College,(Grant Rapids: Wm B. Eerdman’s, Revised Edition, 1987), p 6-8.
[4] Holmes is arguing that the task of university is to do education; Christian university should not be a battle place for faith to engage with other disciplines, but to integrate Christian faith into different disciplines. By advocating Christian higher education, Holmes’ basic contention is that a Christian university or College should endeavor to be both liberal and Christian in its approach to higher education.
[5] The first documentary evidence of this comes early in the life of the first university. University of Bologna adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, in 1158 or 1155. Rüegg, W. (2003), Mythologies and Historiogaphy of the Beginnings, pp 4-34 in H. De Ridder-Symoens, editor, A History of the University in Europe; Vol 1, Cambridge University Press.
[6] The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, which was founded in 859 by the princess Fatima al-Fihri, as the oldest degree-granting university in the world. See: http://www.excite.com/education/education/The-History-Of-Higher-Education, retrieved Feb. 1,2011. The first universities with formally established guilds in Europe were the University of Bologna(1088), the University of Paris (c. 1150, later associated with the Sorbonne), the University of Oxford (1167), the University of Palencia (1208), the University of Cambridge (1209), theUniversity of Salamanca (1218), the University of Montpellier (1220), the University of Padua(1222), the University of Naples Federico II (1224), the University of Toulouse(1229).
[7] A false prophet? ASHE Higher Education Report Special Issue: Christian Faith and Scholarship: An Exploration of Contemporary Developments, volume 33, issue 2, 1998, Published online in Wiley Inter Science (www.interscience.wiley.com), p.8
[8] Ibid., pp. 9-10
[9] Ibid., p. 7
[10] Ibid.,
[11] Ibid.,
[12] In India the earliest universities are: Calcutta Madrasah College, 1781 in Calcutta which was upgraded to university status in 2007, the Serampore College founded in 1818, was the firstinstitution with university status to grant degrees in theology. Thomason College of Civil Engineering, 1847, the oldest autonomous engineering school in Asia and University of Calcutta, 1857 See http://en.wikipedia org/ wiki/List_of_oldest_universities in continuous_operation#Asia, retrieved at Feb. 8 2011.
[13] In the Philippines: the University of Santo Tomas was established as the colegio de Nuestra Senora del Santisimo Rosario in 1611, received university charter in 1645. Owned by the Dominicans in its entirety of existence, University of San Carlos, established as the Colegio de San Carlos in 1876 by the Vincentian Fathers. It claims to be the oldest university in the Philippines and in Asia, claiming that it originated from the Colegio de San Ildelfonso established by the Jesuits in 1595. And the Ateneo de Manila University established by the Jesuits as the Ateneo Municipal de manila in 1859, initially as a primary and secondary school for boys. see ibid.
[14] In Japan: the University of Tokyo was originally a private college of Confusian studies founded by Hayashi Razan in 1630, and was later organized in 1876 as the imperial University. Keio University was founded in 1858 as the oldest modern institute of higher education in Japan. See ibid.
[15] The first Chinese institute called itself university in English was University of Nanjing founded in 1888. Nanjing University is today National Central University become the first Chinese university provided doctoral degree, in 1927. The other earliest universities in China are Beiyand university (Tianjin University),1895, Qiushi Academy, 1897, Imperial University of the Capital (now known as Peking University), 1898. see ibid
[16] See website of Chung Yuan Christian University, http://eng.cycu.edu.tw/data.asp?id=96&c=1# retrieved at Feb. 11, 2011
[17] With no possible to increase student numbers and fees (the student fee in the private university is about double of the state university), private universities are no way to compete with state universities, which not only cheaper in tuition fees but own rich resources for the education operations. Thus, the better studied students, particularly those from well off families who are afford to received supplemental education in cram schools get the chance to be admitted to the state universities, and those from economic lower level families students cannot afford to go to cram schools are eventually falling to private schools, they have to pay double amount of fees to the private university and at the same time their parents have to pay tax to support the well off students to study in state university. Recently the Taiwan government has launched a special project called “50 billion for 5 years to attain world top 100 university ranking” in order to upgrade universities in Taiwan to become members of the top 100 universities club in the world. The project has further worsen the unbalance of the education resource distribution among the universities.
[18] See ACUCA website in http://www.acuca.net/past-future.html, retrieved at Feb. 21,2011.
[19] Ibid.,
[20] Kenneth C. Elzinga, Christian Academe vs. Christians in Academe, Centennial University Address at Abilene Christian University, See: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/30 /elzinga
[21] Ibid.,
[22] The mission statement of UB read:“The United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia works to support a Christian presence in academic communities in Asia ”. While in an overview elaborated in the front page of its website, it states: “The United Board works with a dynamic network of universities and colleges to enhance Christian presence in higher education in Asia. See: http://www.unitedboard. org/programs.asp, retrieved at Feb. 228, 2011
[23] UBCHEA Christian Presence in Asian Christian Higher Education: A Position Paper. Paper unpublished.
[24] Ibid.,
[25] Ibid.,
[26] By 1949, the United Board was working with thirteen Christian colleges and universities in China. Unable to continue working in China after 1951, the United Board began working in other parts of Asia at the request of Christian colleges and universities. After 1980, it was invited to return to China. See the United Board webpage ibid.
[27] The united Board’s programs include leadership and faculty development and program funding. Its programmatic activities center around three initiatives: Environment, Inter-religious Understanding & Peace Building and Local Knowledge. The United Board webpage, ibid.,
[28] Chang Jung Christian University is a young Christian university in Taiwan which this writer is serving as its vice president and Dean of liberal education.
[29] Chang Jung Christian University for instance has put up three major Christian art in the campus to represent the founding spirit and educational promise of CJCU as a Christian university. These art works include: Shepherd Jesus (no one left behind.), feet washing status (humble service) and burning bush (vision and commitment).
[30] These different names are derived from their different educational philosophy and background. It is however, liberal art education are suspected its feudalistic nature and mentality, which general education questioned lack fragmentary and lack of integrity. This writer prefer the name of liberal education.
[31] According the accreditation system in Taiwan, some of the international accreditation results can be taken to substitute the local accrediationl.
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