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Source: https://www.nycu.edu.tw/nycu/en/app/openData/news/data?module=headnews&serno=fcfe67c2-2c20-42e3-920e-0a2c7ca6a3c9&type=json&id=552 Parent: https://www.nycu.edu.tw/nycu/en/app/news/view?module=headnews&id=552&serno=fcfe67c2-2c20-42e3-920e-0a2c7ca6a3c9
{"subject":"From Integration to Leadership: Notes from My Four-Year Journey of University Merger","dataClassName":"President's Letter","pubUnitName":null,"posterDate":"2025-12-11","updateDate":null,"detailContent":"
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(Image credit: Kuan-Yun Chen)
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Narrated by NYCU President Chi-Hung Lin\ \r\nInterviewed by Yen-Shen Chen\ \r\nWritten by Yen-Chien Lai\ \r\nProofread by Yu-An Lu
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______\ \r\n\ \r\nIn 2022, the Vice President of Tokyo Institute of Technology personally led a delegation to visit NYCU. As soon as we sat down, he got straight to the point:\ \r\n“We’re also considering a university merger. We’ve come to learn from your experience.”\ \r\n(Editor’s note: The Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Tokyo Medical and Dental University merged in October 2024 to form the Institute of Science Tokyo.)\ \r\n\ \r\nI smiled and replied, “Then you’ve come at the perfect time—because we’re still right in the middle of it.”\ \r\n\ \r\nWhen National Yang-Ming University and National Chiao Tung University officially merged in 2021, I also began my term as president. From that moment, I understood that this was not merely an administrative integration–it was a profound cultural fusion, an ongoing journey of reshaping our values and reimagining our future.\ \r\n\ \r\nPeople often ask me, “After four years, what’s your secret to a successful merger?”\ \r\nI don’t have a secret, only a conviction that has grown clearer with time:\ \r\nIntegration is not a simple combination—it is re-creation.\ \r\n\ \r\nLesson One: Not Dismantling Signs, but Building a New Stage\ \r\n\ \r\nIn the beginning, the question that drew the most attention was our name.\ \r\nSome wanted “Yang-Ming” to come first; others insisted on keeping “Chiao Tung” for its brand legacy. It reminded me of the martial-arts novels I read as a child—before a duel, the master always asked, “Which school are you from?”\ \r\n\ \r\nWe are so accustomed to defining one another by origin that we sometimes forget: we are now a new university. We are no longer “people from this side or that side,” but partners walking forward together.\ \r\n\ \r\nSo instead of tearing down old signboards, I chose to build a new stage—one where everyone could perform their best act.\ \r\n\ \r\nAs I wrote in the tenth letter, this is what I call “Staging the Stage.”\ \r\n\ \r\nLesson Two: Integration Is Not Averaging, but Value-Adding\ \r\n\ \r\nThe greatest pitfall in any merger is the pursuit of forced balance or mechanical symmetry—when resources are divided merely to appear fair. That approach breeds caution and closes hearts.\ \r\n\ \r\nMy philosophy of integration has always been simple:\ \r\n“Find the reasons why each side cannot live without the other.”\ \r\n\ \r\nAfter the merger, we launched Biomedical Engineering as an emerging interdisciplinary field, drawing on the combined strengths of medicine, life sciences, and engineering from both universities. This was not merely a reshuffling of departments, but a redesign of education itself.\ \r\n\ \r\nThrough this new platform, medical students began exploring life through the lens of simulation and modeling, while engineering students learned to appreciate the complexity and adaptability of living systems. Together, we aspired to cultivate a new generation of talent capable of bridging theory and reality, technology and humanity.\ \r\n\ \r\nThe key to successful integration lies not in A + B, but in creating C—something that exists only because A and B come together.\ \r\n\ \r\nLesson Three: Where There Is Tension, There Is Change\ \r\n\ \r\nDuring the first two years, conflicts and misunderstandings were inevitable.\ \r\nI still remember a faculty meeting where a professor, visibly upset, said,\ \r\n“This is no longer the Chiao Tung we knew!”\ \r\n\ \r\nI didn’t rush to argue. I replied,\ \r\n“You’re right. This is no longer the old Chiao Tung, nor the old Yang Ming.\ \r\nThis is the NYCU we are building together.”\ \r\n\ \r\nTrue integration doesn’t mean polishing away every edge. It means learning to live with differences. A university that still argues is, at the very least, one that still cares—one that still possesses the energy to change. The real danger lies in apathy, when silence replaces dialogue.\ \r\n\ \r\nSo I chose to both listen and lead.\ \r\nRather than fearing collisions, we sought to create a rhythm and safety mechanism for them—turning each moment of friction into sparks of progress, not cracks of divisions.\ \r\n
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\ \r\n\ \r\n\ \r\n\ \r\n\ \r\n\ \r\nLesson Four: Transdisciplinarity Is Not Just Collaboration—It Is Co-Evolution\ \r\n\ \r\nAt NYCU, we have gone beyond simply combining medicine and engineering. We are striving to create new fields that emerge from their intersection.\ \r\n\ \r\nWe established the Digital Medicine and Smart Healthcare Research Center, bringing together medicine, biotechnology, and AI in truly transdisciplinary research. We launched the Industrial Doctorate Program in Smart Healthcare Management and Policy (SHMP) to cultivate professionals who understand both clinical needs and technological applications. We also opened the Bilingual Leadership Bachelor’s Program, accelerating internationalization and preparing students to thrive on the global stage.\ \r\n\ \r\nOver the past four years, we have expanded our international partnerships and academic alliances, extending cross-disciplinary collaboration beyond our campuses and into the world.\ \r\n\ \r\nOur goal is not to count research projects, but to ask whether they generate technologies and ideas that are genuinely meaningful to people and society.\ \r\n\ \r\nWhen students can grasp both algorithms and ethics—when they can find their place in both an operating room and a semiconductor fab—that is the kind of leader the future needs.\ \r\n\ \r\nI have seen more and more such students emerge: not physicians or engineers alone, but innovators who cross boundaries and unite human insight with scientific rigor.\ \r\n\ \r\nLesson Five: A University’s Purpose Is Not Growth in Scale, but Growth in Vision\ \r\n\ \r\nSome say the merger made NYCU bigger. That’s true.\ \r\nBut what matters more is this: as our perspectives expanded, did we also become more visionary?\ \r\n\ \r\nIn confronting global challenges—from aging societies and AI to sustainability, strategic technologies, and talent mobility—has NYCU moved ahead of the curve? Have we dared to serve as a “living laboratory” for Taiwan’s future?\ \r\n\ \r\nWe introduced USR courses that guide students not only to solve problems, but to ask the right questions.\ \r\nWe promoted cross-disciplinary learning to prepare for the unknown.\ \r\nWe launched “Real Talent Selection Experiments” to restore admissions to their human essence.\ \r\n\ \r\nWe are not merely following trends—we are participating in the act of inventing the future.\ \r\n\ \r\nI have always believed that a university’s highest value lies in its ability to ask the questions that society has not yet thought to ask—and to search for their answers.\ \r\n\ \r\nThis is not just our post-merger responsibility. It is our promise to the world as a new-generation university of Taiwan.\ \r\n\ \r\nIntegration Is Not an End—It Is the Beginning\ \r\n\ \r\nFour years have passed. I won’t claim that integration is complete.\ \r\nBut I can say this: we have transitioned from being two universities to sharing one common direction.\ \r\n\ \r\nWill there still be conflicts? Yes.\ \r\nWill cultural differences continue to surface? Of course.\ \r\nBut that is precisely where innovation begins.\ \r\n\ \r\nIntegration is not about closing the past—it is about opening the future.\ \r\nIt is not about becoming the same, but about helping one another become better versions of ourselves.\ \r\n\ \r\nThese are my reflections from four years at NYCU—\ \r\nnotes written for the present, and a message to the future.\ \r\n
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President of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University,
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