Embracing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), National Chi Nan University has set forth finalizing immediate, medium, and long-term objectives to advance sustainable development practices through international partnerships. This shall be achieved by the implementation of a three-phase program aiming to deepen knowledge of SDGs, identify milestones, and integrate interdisciplinary practices.

NCNU President Dr. Yuhlong Oliver Su sought the assistance of NCNU General Education Center Director Chang Ying-chen and NCNU Environmental Protection & Occupational Safety and Health Center Director Chen Ku-fan to develop a new SDGs curriculum. The courses will be taught at the Center for General Education with a focus on how the different departments and university social responsibility teams of NCNU will come together to implement the UN goals here on campus.

According to NCNU College of Science and Technology Dean Tsai Yung-pin, educational workshops devised around themes and case studies are effective tools for getting students to engage in discussing and researching new interdisciplinary topics. This will also help set our students on the same track as their international counterparts, he added, and help facilitate the actualization of SDGs.

NCNU will also be the first university in Taiwan to offer a SDGs curriculum taught by the school president. To perpetuate the university spirit of servicing the community, President Su has elected to work side-by-side with all those who work and study on the NCNU campus to pursue sustainable practices and forge new partnerships through common goals.

The three main operational frameworks of NCNU’s roadmap to sustainability, according to President Su, are: The consolidation of departmental and student initiatives for university social responsibility, the identification of individual key markers to track the school’s progress in meeting each of the 17 SDGs, and the transition of NCNU to a fully eco-conscious, certified-green university. President Su hopes that the multi-faceted curriculum will help foster a new educational paradigm for teaching the SDGs. With the twin goals of deepening the school’s role as a community-oriented green university servicing both regional and international networks, NCNU hopes to rally together professors, employees, students, local residents, neighboring businesses and institutions, and all those who wish to join the global movement in meeting this challenge to humanity’s very survival.

Courses related to UN Sustainable Development Goals