The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) has entered an agreement with the Ministry of Education of Taiwan to build a sustainable Taiwan-focused program to enhance understanding of the history, society, economy, and cultures of Taiwan, and to further promote Taiwan-related scholarly work and intellectual exchanges in North Texas on business, economics, and cross-cultural understanding.
A ceremony was held on September 15, 2017 at the University of Texas at Dallas for the signing of a Taiwan Studies MOU between the university and the Ministry’s Department of International and Cross-strait Education (DICE), by Dr. Richard Benson, President of the University of Texas at Dallas, and by Louis Huang, Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston, on behalf of DICE.
UTD is the third university in Texas to enter an agreement to receive funding support from the Taiwan government, following UT at Austin, and the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
The Taiwan Studies program at UTD will be the first Taiwan Studies program in the United States that has a focus on business, management, and economics, and it will be administered by the university’s Jindal School of Management. There are already close economic ties between enterprises in Taiwan and enterprises in the United States. The Taiwanese company Formosa Plastics, for example, has built plants in Texas and Louisiana, and other Taiwanese companies, such as Foxconn and E United Group, are planning to invest billions more into building US factories, so opportunities to further improve these solid relations abound.
The UTD Taiwan Studies Program will offer Taiwan-related courses, student and scholar exchanges, and develop academic and research collaborations with universities and research institutes in Taiwan. It will also include developing strong academic exchanges between North Texas and Taiwan, and enhancing knowledge of Taiwan, especially regarding business and economics, by organizing public lectures, programs, and cultural events. The Taiwan Studies Program website that UTD will establish will facilitate this.

Photo:L-R, at the signing ceremony: Monique Wedderburn, Director of the Asia Center; Dr. Hasan Pirkul, Dean of the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UTD; Dr. Richard Benson, President of the University of Texas at Dallas; Louis Huang, Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston; and Sophie Chou, Director of the Education Division at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston, with members of the Greater Dallas Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce, and of the Taiwanese Students Association at UTD.