2017 is the third year that I was the Provost of Providence University, in addition to performing the on-campus business and also participated in various programs of the Ministry of Education. In such a busy life, I got several conclusions. Firstly, the energy of teaching innovation requires the university's contextual planning. Secondly, the needs and positioning of teachers must be linked to the supporting mechanism of the university. These are not be separated. Only above characteristics integrate together, those unique teaching innovation flowers will be bred and bloom, then teachers who play flower growers will be happy and proud.
After I got the above conclusion, I strive for the support of President Tang-Chuanyi to promoted multiple evaluation mechanism for teachers to link their teaching innovation and career planning. At the same time, I have set up the "Learning Innovation Group" to become a supporting system for teachers to promote teaching innovation. Even with the internal promotion trajectory and proper support system, there is still a feeling of "everything is ready, but the wind is owed". At this time, I received the news of the Ministry of Education's invitation to participate in the university's social responsibility program.
To me, the university's social responsibility plan is like a universal policy. At that time, I started to worry about the main theme of this plan. I searched through the keywords in my mind. Finally, I found "ageing issue" subject is quite suitable to meet our goal. On the right hand, it can maximize the connection between various disciplines internally; and on the other hand, it can respond to social trends and issues facing the Taichung Sea Line area externally. Once the keywords were decided, the team members and I began to deliberate which aspect to start. Finally, it is concluded that "happiness" is the sum of all aspects. As a result, my romantic journey with the " Build in an ecosystem for happy aging-society" on the sea line start up.
Different from the past plans, in the process of implementing the " Build in an ecosystem for happy aging-society", we attach great importance to localizing (the local elders serve as citizen observers), the resources importing (the members of the Taichung City Government's external agencies serve as advisory committees), and the improvement of partners relationship (management of the teacher community), strengthen professional competences (professional capability application by colleagues); more importantly, the "learning innovation group" has become a bridge between teachers and students and the communities. In the initial stage, the three courses were counted, and three teacher communities were formed: local connection community, technology connection communities, food and agriculture education and nutrition community, with "care" as the core, entering "Cao-Nan", "Wu-Lu" and "Jinjiang" communities, understand the characteristics and problems of different ageing communities.
We care about the physical health of the elders, but also pay attention to their psychological satisfaction. Those teachers and students of the Department of Food and Nutrition care about the nutritional balance of the elders. In addition to health education, they design the recipe of the "Elder Canteen" book. And, those teachers and students of the Department of Social Work and Child Welfare introduce health improvement and care-visiting activities to satisfy the elders' psychology and physiology. The department of Ecological Humanities introduces "Healing Chicken Coops". Let the edible chicken of the past become a role of healing chicken. We also broke through our own constrains of professional knowledge. With the assistance of industry consultants, we guided students to pay attention to the spatial needs of the elderly in the courses of the Department of Business Management, the Department of International Business, the Master Program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and finally designed and created a diverse classroom with both young and old learning together in Shanshui Primary School of Caonan community.
In the latter part of the first program of USR, I think it is not enough to care for the elderly in the community if it is only promoted while we train or teach students. In this way, the concept of "empower the elders" was put forward, so that the elders can have more images of themselves because of us. The Evergreen Life Festival is promoted with this belief. For the festival, the elders are more self-planning and self-fulfillment in daily life. At the same time, students also have the opportunity to participate in activities and develop their abilities. On the eve of the Evergreen Life Festival last year, the elders brought photos of brilliant laughter to practice Dragon Dance; the office colleagues used their own majors to guide students and elders to write songs and sing on the event day. After the event, the students began to reflect on themselves how to get along with their elders at home. These are unprecedented encouragements.
This year we have a student team from the Master Program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. After they were taking USR courses and contacted the people of Wulu community. They decided to organize a team to do something for the community to keep the beauty memory can be forever. Through dialogue with the community, we set a goal to enhance the community identity. After that, the student team strove to find resources to do. Finally, the team explored several peoples as the Executive Chief of Taiwanese food in the community, and curated the exhibition by field interviews and records. They introduced the craftsmen to different generations, and held a "roadside banquet" to make the community renaissance. Looking at the gratitude of the elders at the end of the "roadside banquet", I feel that the community identity is breeding in it. The student team was affirmed by the residents of the community, and they also have different ideas about their future, and social enterprises and social practices have gradually become their career options.
All the details between us in the past, looking at the growth of students, the devotion of teachers, and the dedication of office colleagues, the "Learning & Innovation Group" successfully played the role of the USR office of Providence University. Adhering to the initial intention of support and connection between communities and university, we will do a good job of each role and to be a learning facilitator, so that the teaching innovation belonging to Providence University and communities which near by the sea will continue to be staged, and successfully adhere to the friendship between the teachers and students of the university and the communities which near by the sea.