Department overview
Since 1945
Established in 1946 as the Physical Education Division of the Province of Taiwan Teachers College, the department marked as the first specialized institution to cultivate physical education teachers and recruited graduate students from five-year middle schools. It was reorganized into the Department of Physical Education in 1948 and expanded its scope to include the cultivation of both physical education and hygiene education experts by founding the Department of Physical Education and Health Education in 1954. The department was divided into the physical education group and the health education group. In 1955, when the college restructured as the Province of Taiwan Normal University, the Department of Physical Education and Health Education was subordinate to the College of Education. In the same year, the department launched an additional three-year Physical Education program to meet the increasing demand of physical education professionals until 1958. With the trend of professionalization in every field, the department reverted its name back to its previous title — the Department of Physical Education in 1959, and it has been admitting student athletes on athletic recommendations since 1965, for their future trainings and academic performances. Moreover, the department had offered an evening program from 1968 to 1972 to encourage advanced studies.
With an aim to promote academic research in Physical Education, in 1970, the department founded the first graduate program of Physical Education in Taiwan. Afterwards, in accordance with education policies, it had offered a 40-credit curriculum taking place during summer vacations since 1983 and a 40-credit curriculum on weekends in 1993 for in-service training of middle school teachers, and both ended in 1998. Besides the aforementioned, the Advanced Summer Studies Program for a Bachelor’s Degree had been offered from 1987 to 1993 so as to fulfill vocational school students’ needs for further studies.
Based on the wide array of adaptable teachers and sufficient professional positions, the department became a pioneer by establishing the first Ph.D program in Taiwan for the cultivation of physical education experts.
As the construction of the Gymnasium was completed in 1993, the department office as well as the classrooms for undergraduate and graduate students were moved back to the Main Campus, and the Administration Center of the Graduate Institute and laboratories of each discipline stayed in the Gongguan Campus. Following the national policies of recurrent education, the department has started the Summer Graduate Program in Physical Education Pedagogy and the Weekend Graduate Program in Sports Administration since 1998, along with the Summer Graduate Program in Adapted Physical Education Pedagogy and the Weekend Graduate Program in Sports Science since 1999, for middle school teachers to receive in-service training.
In August, 1990, the College of Sports and Recreation was established, with the Graduate Institute of Sports and Recreation Industry Management, the Department of Physical Education, and the new-founded Department of Athletic Performance as its subordinate organizations, meaning that the department no longer belonged to the College of Education from then on. In the future, the department will continue to hold the educational philosophy of cultivating outstanding teachers and specialists in management and academic research, providing students quality software and hardware facilities to reach the educational goal of developing and making full use of students’ abilities.
Department of PE Development in the Long-range Plan
The vision of PE development
1: To differentiate the discipline and technical subjects, make the best possible use of men and material.
2: Integrate the research worker, promote the coordinate and cooperate with other departments, colleges, upgrade the level of academic research.
3: Strengthen the interaction between students and professors, also strengthen the interaction between our university and others.
4: Make some programs and courses that accord with the social changes, increase the service to society through the education and research, also promote the diverse development and adaptive development to our students.
Compatible with the vision of PE development, our medium range goal for the PE department is able to be evaluated, on the basis of some plans as follow:
1: Establish the annual accountability system, evaluate the achievement on several aspects as follow: education, research, service, performance, and the system’s efficiency of our administration service. In the same time, our own department will arrange and establish the external review panel to examine the every performance, and then give some feedback and suggestions to make the progress.
2: In our department, we will aim at the raw teacher’s career development, establish the mentoring system step by step, meanwhile, the senior professors will pass on their teaching, serving, research, and coach experience to raw teachers. The program about academic research, systematization, practical education and efficacy, depends on every discipline and technical subject organization’s guidance system, furthermore, establish the honor program for the talented students in college, coaching them to practice and study the master’s courses, guiding them realize and learn how to research and experiment as earlier as possible, so they could cultivate the capabilities about the basic kinematic knowledge.
3: Keep broaden and deepen the students and teachers’ horizons, and foster the international viewpoint.
(I) Encourage the professor in PE department use the English language in the class, so the students and professor can both promote their international competitiveness.
(ii) Upgrade the international viewpoint and diverse atmosphere through the delegation, competition, academic issue, and personal experience sharing.
(iii) Provide some premium to encourage the students and professors participate in different international activities.
(IV) Establish the institution of post doc research and visiting scholar.
4: Scheme the courses like [Movement Spread] [Adaptive Exercise] [Body building’s promote and guidance] [Sports and Leisure Industry Management]
Blueprint in the future
1: To differentiate the discipline and technical subjects, make the best possible use of men and material.
2: Integrate the research worker, promote the coordinate and cooperate with other departments, even the other colleges, upgrade the level of academic research.
3: Strengthen the interaction between students and professors, also strengthen the interaction between our university and others.
4: Scheme the courses like [Movement Spread] [Sports and Fitness][Special Exercise].
Equipment
In addition to prominent and professional Faculty, our department takes pride in our excellent teaching equipment, training and laboratory facilities. Our department is situated on the third floor of the multi-purpose sports complex in Hoping campus. Athletic Department Office is located on the second floor; the administration office, the departmental classrooms, the Audiovisual Room, College of Sports and Recreation office and Physical Education of Research and Development Center are all located on the third floor. In terms of professional teaching equipment, classrooms and the auditorium asides, there is still a Physical Fitness Center for Teaching Excellence Project. Moreover, both Hoping campus and Kung-Kuan branch are equipped with professional facilities, inclusive of:
- Gymnasiums
- Track and field
- Swimming pools
- Dance studios
- Gymnastic rooms
- Martial arts rooms
- Weight training rooms
- Table tennis rooms
- Basketball courts
- Volleyball courts
- Tennis courts
In order to improve and develop academic researches on physical education, our department established three laboratories, including Exercise Physiology Laboratory, Sport Biomechanics Laboratory and Physical Activity Psychology Laboratory. Instruments of each laboratory are installed for research and for competitive sports training to strengthen the capability of athletes and to improve performance. Furthermore, to enhance teaching quality, laboratory instruments will be updated if necessary.