National Tsing Hua University
EN-3: Student Life

The Student Association established the sustainable group in 2020. They aimed to promote sustainability to engage more students with the issues in sustainability. The group also presents students to supervise how the university realizes SDGs in various initiatives.
The following student clubs, Science Services Club, Aboriginal Culture Club, Grassroots Culture Service Club, Care Children Club, Tsing-Hua Friendship Ambassador Association, Educational Equality Club, Bliss & Wisdom Youth Club, Chong De Young Volunteer Club, Rover Scout Group, Blue Sky Club, Nature Conservation Club, Mountaineering Club, Kenya International Volunteer Team, Tanzania International Voluntary Team, Belize Educational Service Group, Malaysia Volunteer Team, cut in to help the society from different social aspects, such as scientific knowledge, cultural understanding and preservation, caring for disadvantaged groups, etc. They bring their knowledge backgrounds and practical skills to the places in which someone is needed.

NTHU is devoted to sustainable agriculture in many ways. In students' orientation, the university has a garden close to the dormitories for students to grow vegetables and fruits; there is one roof garden for students to practice farming and plant care.
In community outreach, the university has several university social responsibility-oriented projects to support regional agriculture sustainability. For example, several projects work with different communities to support their agricultural market to urban residents through regional co-operatives facilitated by technology. There is one green farmers' market regularly held on campus to promote local engagement and food education. Moreover, NTHU's research team also installed sensors on some large farms in Taiwan, and uploaded the collecting data to the cloud through LoRa or NB-IoT for analysis. By developing "intelligent precision agriculture technology", NTHU helps the farmers save the cost of manpower and materials, improve quality and output, and increase their income. Moreover, NTHU has a training program for talents interested in agriculture. It offers courses about the use of AI technology and big data in agriculture.

NTHU aggressively encourages students to run their start-ups. Below list are ongoing enterprises:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17-Z9xTql4ApW183JCHdWqAN7kfL7PlGV/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KY6AQ_ym4DErY7NqRR6hh1zGbN1deKZs/view?usp=sharing

NTHU has been developing a systematic pathway for students who are interested in startups. The residential college accommodates students from different disciplines to nourish entrepreneurship and practice startups. An innovation and entrepreneurship platform was established to serve as the information hub to connect stakeholders involved in this innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem (http://gc-iep.vm.nthu.edu.tw/iep/). The annual startups competition was held to set up the stage for students' startup teams to share their progress and acquire the funding opportunities for the follow-up development. The mentoring networks composed of alumni, practitioners in domains, funding angles and venture capitalists are also ready to facilitate these startups. The NTHU Garage is the service system that recruits startups on campus to provide resources in social and financial capitals to nourish these startups. The NTHU Garage sets up the half-year recruiting plan for startups to compete to be admitted to the Garage. Many of the startups are formed by students from different colleges in NTHU and focus on innovation to achieve some of SDGs in their business development. In the past three years (2018~2020), there are 26 startups in total listed in the shared files. Their innovation objectives are tackling issues in SDGs 3, 4 in many teams, and some are in 7, 9, 15, 16, etc.

NTHU has established the Endowment Fund since 2012. Under the goal of pursuing sustainable operation, there are no energy-consuming industries or companies in the investment portfolio in recent years. Moreover, in order to develop students with socially, environmentally and fiscally responsible investment and financial skills, NTHU has been offering investment courses emphasizing the learning and practice to fulfill this objective. For instance, an investment course offered by professor Leh-Chyan So at the Department of Quantitative Finance. In the class, students learn the important theories and models in financial market investment, and then form teams to practice the investment with the fund in virtual currency. Moreover, NTHU plans to launch a pilot program for students to practice sustainable investment skills by raising the investment fund from faculty and alumni, and grants to teams which win the university-wide competition on sustainable investment with virtual currency. These teams could profit from the surplus from their investment within one year period of time, and return the fund for the next year’s competition. If the teams get negative returns, the student investment fund management will absorb the deficit. NTHU expects this student investment program could develop students’ financial skills to contribute to good ESG practices.

NTHU held the seminar focused on sustainable development " Whose SDGs, Whose USR" in 2020/10/29. NTHU not only shared how the university was related to SDGs, but also invited other universities that cared about SDGs as well to share their experience and achievements.

"Professor Fu Liyu, the director of the Center for Indigenous Science Development in NTHU. She is committed to the education and promotion of science activities in the rural area and the culture of the indigenous people. She holds ""Go Go Giwas Technology Camp"" based on the topic of science and indigenous culture. The camp arouses the impact of scientific and technological progress on their community and tribes. Moreover, the establishment of the Indigenous Science Fair on the Cloud cultivates basic scientific knowledge and a basic understanding of emerging technologies for the public in remote areas. It also cooperates with officials, scientists, and aboriginal elders to develop the YABIT Game Books and the “Go Go Giwas'' series, using games and animation to promote the science education of the aboriginal people and cultivate the problem-solving ability from the scientific games and activities of the indigenous culture.
2.Professor Shiau, Ming-Twen, the deputy dean of the College of Art in the NTHU, is committed to recycling glass. For example, the glass's main raw material, silica sand is ecological material that can be recycled and is not toxic. After a special forge, porous holes can be produced, which can be made into silica sand for planting. It will not interact with fertilizers and cause odors. It is not only environmentally friendly but also successfully eliminates dengue fever and cultivates the technological aesthetics of sustainable resource regeneration."

"NTHU Nature Conservation Association:
In various outdoor activities of the Nature Conservation Association, we follow the seven principles of “Leave No Trace”. First of all, “plan ahead and prepare”. Before holding the activities, we conduct a safety assessment for sites and route planning by doing site surveys or getting information passed down by experienced club members. Considering the stamina and safety of the members, we organize activities by following the rule of "travelling and camping on durable surfaces ", such as developed mountain trails, sandy ground... etc.
If our activities require us to prepare meals by ourselves, we will eat while cooking to ensure that no food will be left. We also ask the participants to bring the waste back to school to achieve the goal of "disposing of waste properly" and minimize the negative impact on the environment caused by the activity.
Many activities held by the Nature Conservation Association include ecology observations. In order to truly follow the principles of "leaving what you find" and "respecting wildlife", we put them back to their original place after carefully observing the characteristics of creatures and do not feed any wild animals. We are also careful not to bring non-native species (such as alien species of animals and plants) to other places to avoid the possibility of ecological catastrophe. As for "minimizing campfire impacts ", since our activities have not used campfires so far, this rule is a reminder in the future.
Finally, in the principle of "being considerate of other visitors", when we meet other hikers on the trail, we will greet them with enthusiasm. When we find the novel creatures, we will share our pleasure with other people who come to observe creatures. Hoping we can appreciate the beauty of nature together.

NTHU Mountaineering Club:
1. Do not leave any waste. All waste must be packed out on our own for each team.
2. We try not to leave leftovers while cooking, including liquid waste.
3. While cleaning, we use water only and do not use any detergents
4. We only make fires on places where the ecosystem can sustain if necessary, such as low-altitude areas.
5. We occasionally clean up mountain areas."

The Center for General Education has held lectures on the theme of sustainable development for two years. It's held in the International conference Hall, in which could accommodate 400 people. The topic of 2018 is "Seeing Taiwan from the perspective of the world - discussing academics and sustainable energy issues". The theme of 2019 is "Chinese Culture and Sustainable Development." The video has been uploaded on Youtube(https://youtu.be/6wr8PPg37b0). The lecture focuses on global politics, economics, environmental issues in 20thC. The core issue of Mr. Liu Zhaoxuan lies in whether ethics, comprehensive development, and environmental balance could be a set of macro-systematic indicators. Further replacement must be transformed into an operable system to become influential, so as to discuss how Chinese Confucianism can respond to the task of global sustainable development in the 21st century.

"NTHU T-bike services" is a student-initiated program aiming to reduce discarded bicycles in schools. Every year, after the graduation season, a batch of bicycles would decay due to the bad weather and not be used properly. In order not to waste these bicycles, a T-bike team was established. The T-bike team classifies the bicycles, repairs those in better condition, and then rents them to NTHU students. All NTHU students could apply for T-bikes every semester. Students could work-for-bike or simply pay the rent. The T-bike team is committed to reducing the amount of abandoned bicycles in the school. They hope that students would not only learn how to repair and maintain bicycles through the process of implementation, but also think further about the issue of abandoned bicycles that arises, how to solve them, and how to design feasible methods, etc. Then, in the future, the students could utilize the service experiences gained in all aspects and to contribute to reducing waste.

The Wet Labs of some departments such as Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering will produce waste disposal including organic solvents and specific chemical substances. These departments deal with the disposal based on the waste disposal - hazardous materials policy of NTHU. The departments will hire students to assist employees with the recovery of organic solvents.
Besides, NTHU will post all the student employment opportunities on campus on NTHU Bulletin Board, including opportunities in every department or administrative unit. Part of them give priority to disadvantaged groups such as students who need financial aid or with disabilities.

National Tsing Hua University has referred to the "Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility" and proposed its own graduation pledge.

"I am OOO. As a graduate of National Tsing Hua University, I pledge to take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider or any organization for which I work and will try to improve these aspects in my personal life and my future communities."

NTHU hosts Green Pine Community College which offers many courses for the public to register. Some of the courses are sustainability-related subjects and students in NTHU are welcome to enroll to gain their knowledge and skills and also the social networks in sustainability.