President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of April 1 with Michael M. Crow, the president of Arizona State University (ASU). President Ma congratulated his guest, who was visiting Taiwan to receive an honorary doctorate degree from National Central University, and expressed hope that Taiwan and the United States will continue to strengthen interaction and cooperation in the field of education.
In remarks, President Ma first noted that prior to his current position at Arizona State University, President Crow served as executive vice provost of Columbia University. President Crow, he said, has served at ASU since 2002, and under his leadership the institution has become the largest public university in the United States. In addition, ASU is one of America's leading integrated research universities, President Ma pointed out. In 2009 President Crow was selected by Time magazine as one of the 10 Best College Presidents in the United States, an honor that President Ma said is very impressive.
President Ma stated that ASU is home to the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, which offers interdisciplinary programs in more than 10 different areas, and is also engaged in major research on many fronts. He pointed, for example, to ASU's Biodesign Institute, which is one of the school's most noted accomplishments. At the same time, the Global Institute of Sustainability has been created to engage in studies associated with innovation, health, energy and the environment, and national security. Furthermore, President Ma added, under the leadership of President Crow, over the past decade the university's research budget has tripled, reaching US$380 million in 2012. This makes ASU one of only a handful of universities in the United States with an annual research budget in excess of US$200 million, he noted. ASU, he commented, provides its students with an outstanding education and has become a new model for universities in the United States. As such, he added, it is an excellent example for the possible development of higher education here.
In response to the arrival of the knowledge economy of the 21st century, said President Ma, the Ministry of Education has put high priority on actively integrating the resources of Taiwan's various universities in order to make them more competitive. For instance, National Cheng Kung University, National Sun Yat-sen University, National Chung Hsing University, and National Chung Cheng University in 2011 formed the Taiwan Comprehensive University System. Collaboration of this sort, the president remarked, is expected to spark healthy competition among universities. In addition, the World Bank in its Knowledge Economy Index 2012 Rankings ranked Taiwan 13th out of 146 countries surveyed and the top in Asia, the president said, adding that this demonstrates that Taiwan has considerable advantages in this area.
President Ma furthermore mentioned that Taiwan's higher education system is also looking to strengthen its interaction and cooperation with the international community. For this reason, the Ministry of Education is providing a financial assistance mechanism to universities to help them establish cooperative relationships with foreign academic institutions, he said. President Ma expressed hope that ASU will continue strengthening its interaction and cooperation on many fronts with universities here, thereby helping to raise academic research standards and the quality of education among our universities, while also enhancing Taiwan's international academic standing and visibility.
In addition to President Crow, the delegation also included Denis Fred Simon (ASU Vice Provost for International Strategic Initiatives), Angela Cesal (尹衍桓) (a member of the ASU Foundation's board of directors), Industrial Technology Research Institute Chairman Ching-Yen Tsay (蔡清彥), and National Central University President Jing-Yang Jou (周景揚) and Office of International Affairs Dean Yuan-Hann Chang (張元翰). The group was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Philip Y. M. Yang (楊永明).