The Ministry of Education has announced the establishment of the “Taiwan University AI Alliance,” with Chung Yuan Christian University being one of the 25 member institutions. Addressing the prevalent trend in Taiwanese society and education that prioritizes STEM over humanities, Chung Yuan Christian University, which has its roots in STEM fields, emphasizes its commitment to balancing STEM and the humanities. Through “holistic education,” the university aims to shape students into well-rounded individuals. To ensure that students are well-versed in intelligent technology applications while also equipped with the ability to understand external changes through humanistic and social perspectives, Chung Yuan Christian University is aligning its curriculum with AI trends. The university is developing courses that integrate AI empowerment, interdisciplinary collaboration, and humanistic STEAM, leveraging the advantages of humanities to guide AI and intelligent technologies, thereby enhancing students’ future competitiveness.
Chung Yuan Christian University notes that as AI drives industrial revolutions in recent years, humanistic education has garnered significant attention from society. Under the guidance of the university’s educational philosophy, the General Education Center has introduced two compulsory AI foundational courses for freshmen, actively integrating AI with humanistic literacy. The university’s general education curriculum is divided into four major categories: “Heaven, Humanity, Material, and Self.” The two courses offered, “Introduction to Natural Science and Artificial Intelligence” and “Computational Thinking and Programming,” fall under the “Material” category and are mandatory for all first-year students. Each academic year, nearly 120 classes of these courses are offered.
Ke Hui-Ling, Director of the General Education Center, stated that in addition to the two compulsory AI foundational courses for freshmen, Chung Yuan Christian University is leveraging university-level resources to develop a talent cultivation program that integrates “Humanistic Intelligence” (HI) and “Artificial Intelligence” (AI). As a pioneer among universities in Taiwan, CYCU has established the “AI Education and Academic Ethics Steering Committee” in the university’s secretariat to oversee AI-related educational decisions. Furthermore, the university plans to establish the “AI Ethics and Global Governance Institute” within the General Education Center. This institute will organize academic forums and various educational and research enhancement activities for faculty and students on a global scale, making CYCU one of the first higher education institutions in the country to explore this field.
Shih Bai-Gang, Coordinator of Basic Science and Assistant Professor at the General Education Center, remarked that NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang has noted, “Artificial intelligence is the most powerful technological force; it will drive future innovation and development.” The two mandatory AI courses for freshmen at CYCU are a direct response to current trends and issues, equipping students with a forward-looking competitive edge in this era of transformation.
Liu, a student from the Accounting Department of the Business School, took the “Introduction to Natural Science and Artificial Intelligence” course in her freshman year. She mentioned that her understanding of AI was initially limited, but through the professor’s shared materials and hands-on activities, she gained clarity. She discovered the importance of big data analysis and corporate strategy management embedded within AI, which are closely related to what is taught in the Business School. On the other hand, Qiu, a student from the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, remarked that as technology advances, programming skills are becoming increasingly essential. Early exposure to programming is beneficial for future development. The “Computational Thinking and Programming” course helped him understand the overall structure of Python, and through classroom practice, he became more familiar with programming languages, finding it highly rewarding.
Over the past year, under the support of the Ministry of Education’s “Intelligent Humanities and Future Talent Cultivation Program,” Chung Yuan Christian University has established a solid foundation in digital humanities education. The “Digital Humanities Course Module” has seen a total enrollment of 743 students, with students integrating their learned knowledge with professional skills to create project presentations each semester. Su, a student from the Department of Applied Chinese Language and Literature who has completed six courses within the digital humanities module, has successfully received job offers from several tech companies due to his cross-disciplinary abilities in digital technology and humanities knowledge, proving that he is in high demand despite not having a STEM background.
Chung Yuan Christian University emphasized that the trend of cultivating future leaders who possess both AI expertise and humanistic literacy is becoming increasingly evident. Moving forward, the university will place greater emphasis on developing “digital humanities interdisciplinary talents” as a highlight of its digital humanities initiatives, aiming to deeply root AI education while enhancing it, achieving the goal of strengthening AI capabilities at CYCU.
