Invited by Soochow University’s Light Year Poets Society as the third speaker of the four literature-related lectures in a two-week “Light Year Poetry Festival” from May 8 to May 19, the editor Godwind (penname) of Unitas Literary Monthly talked about the theme of "Literature and Editing." She is not only an editor but a writer who wrote Girl Core, The Ninety-Eight Percent Mediocre Girl, etc.

Godwind started her speech by citing the movie Genius, in which the editor Perkins and the writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald became bosom friends after discussing and revising the manuscripts together and publishing their novels. According to her own experiences, in reality, nevertheless, it is inevitable for an editor to encounter some difficulties that it may even wear down his or her passion for editing and publishing.

Godwind then introduced the publishing process of a monthly magazine. First, the editors need to decide the theme, make the outline, write down the imposition scheme, revise the draft, and then check the printing conditions in the factory. She joked that the publishing process is a constant "one-month cycle in hell,” and the editor's job is almost like a factory worker’s.

In the case of a literary magazine, editors hardly revise authors’ drafts, but just correct some typos or
misspellings. In addition, they also need to communicate with photographers, illustrators, art editors and hold meetings to discuss and select the covers and the pictures in the magazine.
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Most editors working in literature publishing business love writing. However, while writing can be completed by a single person, editing and publishing a magazine always involve team work. It is necessary and essential for an editor to communicate and cooperate with other people in order to make good publications possible. In the end of her speech, Godwind shared her words of wisdom: "In literature and editing, you’ll find both passion and frustration. The two may seem different but could be the same. So try to stand in the middle, and you are welcome to be a middle person of love!”

Information provided by SCU School of Foreign Languages and Cultures
Translated by Campus Reporter(s) Pei-Wen Chi
Link: https://www-en.scu.edu.tw/news/1663

To enhance students' English ability is no longer a slogan! Soochow University has started its reforms on English education, hoping to help its students reach a score of 550 or above on TOEIC at the end of their sophomore year, as well as to increase their competitiveness in the job market before graduation.

Working with Chun Shin Ltd. Co., the official agent of Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Taiwan, to initiate the “Industry Cooperation Project of Enhancing Students’ English Proficiency,” Soochow University held a signing ceremony on April 29, 2016 in its Waishuanghsi Campus as the school President Wei-Ta Pan signed the contract with the company’s chairman Zuo-Jun Shao. The project will not only pay the testing fees for students under the school’s budget, but also introduce language management into the school’s English education, using students’ TOEIC scores as references for course evaluation and curriculum design.

With a focus on increasing students’ competitiveness in the future, Soochow University has been subsidized by the Ministry of Education’s Teaching Excellence Project for 12 years in a row, and its graduates have shown outstanding performances in the job market. President Pan stressed that the University has been paying close attention to changes and trends in various industries and thus nurturing talents with global visions and practical skills, and that to make education practical and useful has always been the primary goal of Soochow University.

To achieve the goal of cultivating talents with global visions for the job market, the University has started to implement its new school-wide language management policy, with testing students’ English proficiency as a first step. Students who enrolled or will enroll in the academic years of 2015, 2016 and 2017 are required to take the TOEIC tests in the second semesters of their freshman and sophomore years. Their scores in such pre-tests and post-tests will be used to evaluate the efficacy of the English courses and to improve the curricula to increase students’ competitiveness in the workplace and in the world.

“A score of 550 on TOEIC has become a common requirement for employees’ English proficiency in
Taiwan’s job market,” explained Mao-Sung Lin, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages and Cultures.
Students should reach such a standard by the end of their sophomore year, and continue to improve their English ability in the following two years with a more specific focus on the area or industry of their career planning, so that they can enter the job market with ease upon graduation.
Therefore, Soochow University has initiated reforms on the school-wide general required English courses.

Starting from this semester, as Lin pointed out, the three-hour freshman English courses consist of one hour of international English communication oral training, while the sophomore English courses also focus on international English communication and business English. Starting from the academic year 2017-18, different schools in the University will offer different general required freshman and sophomore English courses, which will better meet their students’ needs and specialties. In addition, courses such as legal English, business English, practical English, etc. will be offered to the juniors and seniors to fit their needs and raise their competitiveness in the future job market.

Under the leadership of President Pan, the reforms have been supported by all the schools and
departments. Pan regards it as important to establish a university’s own brand in an era of declining birthrate.

Accordingly, quality control is the most fundamental element of establishing the brand, and “language
management is an integral part of quality control of Soochow’s graduates,” said Pan.
Chairman Shao of Chun Shin Ltd. Co. also hoped this joint effort by Soochow University and the company would set a successful example of college-level English language learning management in Taiwan. Through such language management, it is very likely to create a three-way win-win situation where a university can establish its own brand, its graduates will have better competitiveness and the industry may recruit competent employees.

​Written by Campus Reporter(s) Chih-Ting Chen, Hsun-Tien Cheng
Translated by Campus Reporter(s) Pei-Wen Chi
Link: https://www-en.scu.edu.tw/news/1599

​On 16th September, 2015 Professor Viktor Mayer Schönberger, a most authoritative scholar in Big Data,
gave a lecture at Soochow University under the co-sponsorship with Global News magazine. The speech was followed by a panel discussion with Economic Minister Chen-Chung Deng and Soochow Vice President Wei-Liang Chao.

Big data is a new revolution, not just tools and technology, but also brand new way of thinking. To conform to the new trend of the age, Soochow University established the School of Big Data Management, the first and only in Taiwan.

Predicting the future has always been the ultimate dream of human beings, however, lack of scientific
knowledge in the past often turned prophecies into superstitions. With the approaching smart computing, and the help of big data management we are now enabled to do new kind of prophesy. As Professor Mayer Schönberger pointed out, by collecting and analyzing big data we can gain more perspectives to view the world, accelerate process of exploring science. Big Data is based on science but changes science at the same time. When quantitative change leads to qualitative change, we are able to find out what we couldn’t see and understand in the past.

He took coin-tossing as an example to explain that 50 percent of heads and tails is only an idealized
outcome in science. A more precise analysis would be to toss the coin ten thousand times and see which side comes down more often. Big data is an on-going discovery of the world. We have to continue gathering and analyzing sufficient amount of data to be closer to reality, and to find true value. Moreover, he said, the world is more than just one and nil.
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So far, we are creating more than two million and five hundred thousand trillion bits of data per day globally with rapid growth in scale, speed, complexity. Faced with the new age, our society needs talents able to decipher data with greater demands in instantaneity, accuracy, and more advanced analysis. Mayer-Schönberger said that with the ever increasing data, we need to replace the old with creativity. We cannot stop, but instead try to find the trend through diverse data. He declared that the emerging revolution of big data is the only assurance for our employability.

With the coming of big data, Mayer-Schönberger reminded young people not to do what has already been done, but keep challenging new horizons through data analysis. We need to be ambitious so that we will believe we are talented and confident. He encouraged students to break away from the past, to keep trying, and to master the big data age with creativity.

• About Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

           Outstanding expert in Big Data / Author of best seller “Big Data”
           Professor of Graduate School of Internet, University of Oxford
           Consultant to Microsoft, World Economic Forum, companies, and organizations
           Written eight books and more than 100 papers on Big Data