The mission of the International Center for the Promotion of Partner Based Learning is to promote cross cultural and interdisciplinary cooperation leading to education of the whole person in the field of higher education. The focus is on cooperation between those taught and those teaching with a view to finding more effective educational models. Particular interest is in the part played in such education by former students.
The Center is based on projects organized by and largely financed by former students of the Departments of Sociology and Social Work at Fu Jen University in Taiwan. The Center comes under the College of Social Sciences at Fu Jen. April 26th saw the signing of an agreement of the Center with the Institute for Overseas Programs at Sun Yat Sen University in China. Beginning at the end of August the Director of the Center will be located on the Zhuhai campus of SYSU. In cooperation with the Institute in Zhuhai, the Center will continue ongoing projects that include internships for students at businesses of former students, market research at a factory in Shanghai, educational projects for needy students in the Philippines and Cambodia, cultural immersion poor areas. One of the first new projects following the agreement will be, Cross Cultural Studies, a course taught jointly in three locations by the Director of the Center, Sophie Lee Ming Huei at SYSU, by a former Fu Jen student, Wang Ta Hsiu, at National Taipei Educational University in Taiwan and Fr Daniel Ross at Fu Jen University. Students of the three universities will meet together periodically by video and audio conferencing and at the end of the semester there will be an international student conference in Zhuhai. (Contributor: Fr Dan Ross)