This year (2024) National Pingtung University of Science and Technology will celebrate its 100th birthday, so it put together book entitled 100 Years of Cultivation: Benevolence, Truth, Sustainability. The book was announced in conjunction with the Spring Festival Gathering, which was held to mark the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. At 10 a.m. on February 16, NPUST President Chin-Lung Chang, La New International Co., Ltd Chairman Liu Pao-yu, NPUST Alumni Association Chairman Wei-Po Kuo, and national table tennis player and NPUST Alumnus, Chiang Hung-Chieh kicked the year off with a press conference. Those present were taken on a trip through time with a retrospective video that journeyed through the past century of the school. The official Centennial Anniversary will take place in November of this year, with a number of celebratory activities scheduled to take place, including a Centennial Concert, the International Symposium on Sustainability, the 2024 UNTA Annual Meeting, All-Star Games, and much more.
Since its establishment in 1924 as the Kaohsiung State Pingtung Extension School of Agriculture, the school has gone through a number of organizational changes, later operating under the names of Kaohsiung State Pingtung Agricultural School, Taiwan Provincial Pingtung Vocational School of Agriculture, Taiwan Provincial Institute of Agriculture, and Taiwan Provincial Pingtung Vocational School of Agriculture. In 1991, the institution was upgraded to become the National Pingtung Polytechnic Institute, and in 1997 it further expanded and was upgraded to become the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST). Currently designated as a comprehensive university of science and technology, NPUST comprises seven colleges including Agriculture, Engineering, Management, Humanities and Social Science, International Studies, Veterinary Medicine, and Professional Studies. At each of its colleges, teaching and research aims to deepen the integration of theory and practice, and emphasize inter-field innovation. Through coordinated strategies, NPUST has become a strong promoter of “technological agriculture”, and a key national institution for cultivating specialized talent in agricultural science and technology and ecological sustainable development.
When NPUST had reached its 90th anniversary in 2014, it first participated the World GreenMetric Ranking, and each year in the following decade it was awarded the number one spot in Taiwan. Over the years, the number of schools participating in the GreenMetric Ranking has seen continuous growth, yet NPUST has proved its ability to contend, with results constantly placing them among the 5 in Asia and the top 30 in the world. NPUST’s performances in other international assessments, including the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings and QS STARS have also been quite impressive. Adding to this, for its efforts in ‘sustainability’ and ‘university social responsibility’, NPUST won the Gold Award for its “University Sustainability Report” and the National Sustainability Award in the Education Category at the Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards. Since 2020, NPUST has been also participating in the Global Vision Magazine University Social Responsibility Awards, where it has seen remarkable results, winning many trophies for a variety of outstanding projects.
President Chin-Lung Chang expressed his gratitude to past presidents of the school for their vision and dedicated leadership over the past century. “Our school has now become an important base for technical and vocational education, technology research and development, and policy advocacy at home and abroad. Based on a diligent, down-to-earth spirit of benevolence, we have created a “practice-oriented” university, which serves as an important base for scientific and technological research and development, and talent cultivation.”
NPUST is looking forward to seeing its old friends and alumni at the upcoming celebration. With so many outstanding achievements to look back on and many new exciting plans for the future, the university is very appreciative of the great support it has received through donations, match-making opportunities and other contributions from alumni and industry partners over the years. Together, they have helped the school become what it is today, and with continued support will help it to achieve even greater results in the future.
