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Welcoming New Students to Tamkang

Date 2018-09-06 7189 Clicks

To extend a warm welcome to new students, Tamkang University recently held two "Welcome Ceremonies", which involved a handful of rituals. In one ritual, students had to climb a steep staircase hewn into a slope beside the Tamsui Campus. The reason the welcome ceremony starts at this slope, know in Chinese as the "overcoming difficulty slope", is because climbing these steps is an allegory for overcoming one's troubles. It symbolizes the process in which people transcend the difficulties they encounter in day to day life.

After scaling the slope and walking past the Ancient Palace Classrooms, a series of classrooms that resemble ancient Chinese buildings, the students headed to the Shao-Mo Memorial Gymnasium, where the ceremony was set to commence.

The ceremony proper kicked off with performances from numerous TKU clubs, including the Cheerleading club and several dance clubs. To follow was a speech by the President of TKU, Dr. Huan-Chao Keh, who described the phases TKU underwent on the way to becoming the foremost private university in Taiwan. President Keh also talked of Tamkang's success in the recent Cheers Magazine poll, an annual study that shows which college graduates are the most popular among local Taiwanese businesses. TKU ranked first among all private Taiwanese universities, and, when adding in public universities, placed ninth overall.

President Keh concluded his speech by encouraging students to develop the ability to study independently and to continue studying throughout their lives. He exhorted students to improve their personal character and to make the most of their time at college, in the hope of adding to their knowledge and growing as people.

At the end of the ceremony, the college song was played and the students, faculty, and staff in attendance sang along in one voice.

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