Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU), upholding the philosophy of “holistic education,” integrates University Social Responsibility (USR) into campus life, encouraging students to take action locally in Taoyuan while keeping an international perspective. On the occasion of its 70th anniversary, CYCU not only deepens its local engagement but also expands its impact overseas, hoping that faculty and students can leverage knowledge, research, and social practice across boundaries. Through their actions, “sustainability” becomes the infinite city that the CYCU community co-creates on campus.
Fluid Spaces: Sustainable Practice in the Canal and Pond Project
For more than forty years, CYCU’s College of Design has guided students to step out of the classroom and embed social consciousness into their learning and daily life. Although each department focuses on different fields and issues, they share a common spirit: combining design expertise with sustainability concerns to respond to social needs.
Professor Chen, Chie-Peng, a distinguished faculty member of the Department of Interior Design, has studied Taoyuan’s ponds for over twenty years. Since the Ministry of Education officially launched the USR program in 2018, he has led students from the “Xiaoli Cultural Green Corridor Initiative” into the Bade Xiaoli community, applying accumulated knowledge and experience to elderly welfare, food-focused community building, and design entrepreneurship. This gradually realizes the vision of “one pond, one school, one community.”
Professor Chen summarizes this connection to the land with a single word: “flow.” He believes that, like the movement of canals and ponds, the USR program should be a “flowing” process that links people, events, places, and resources. Starting with the importance of ponds and canals, it evolved into exploring the boundless possibilities between humans, land, and urban development, culminating in the current project: “Flow and Linked Redevelopment: Symbiotic Development and International Cooperation in Taoyuan’s Canal and Pond Water Culture Environment.”
Chen emphasizes, “Design should not serve only 10% of the population; it should improve life for the remaining 90%.” The efforts of CYCU faculty and students have been recognized with the Far Eastern magazine USR University Social Responsibility Award, “Local Integration” first prize, providing a concrete and innovative model for water culture preservation and sustainable education in Taiwan.
Design as Care: Using Products to Solve Social Problems
Assistant Professor Shih Chang-Pu from CYCU’s Department of Commercial Design integrates USR philosophy into design teaching. He views design as an “integrative discipline,” guiding students to start from local concerns and use design to address social issues.
Initially, students’ on-campus design projects were mostly conceptual products difficult to promote. To address this, Professor Shih encouraged students to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset in design planning, establishing a “one-stop” process from design, feedback, to iteration, connecting projects with society and the environment. Students shifted their focus from personal preferences to cultivating empathy for people and the environment. Impressively, these socially conscious works repeatedly earned accolades in competitions.
Students Wu Jo-Hao, Sun Kang-Hsuan, and Huang Li-An co-created the interactive educational product Story EMonster, designed for children with ADHD or autism in special education settings, helping them express emotions. The work received the highest honor, Best of the Year, at the 2025 iF Design Awards. The students subsequently joined the U-start entrepreneurship program, gradually moving toward product mass production.
“Students learn from USR not only design but also care for the environment and humanity, which becomes their unique and powerful competitive edge,” Shih said. When design merges with social care, it can generate impactful products and potentially transform into sustainable social enterprises, achieving a win-win of social good and business innovation.
Cross-Disciplinary Communication: Media Narrative Skills in the Service Learning Editorial Team
Established in 2014, CYCU’s Service Learning Center Reporter Team originally aimed to document and disseminate campus service learning initiatives through student perspectives. To adapt to the changing times, the team has recently transformed into the “Editorial Team,” cultivating students into next-generation cross-media communicators.
The team focused on issues affecting migrant workers in Taoyuan, gaining deeper understanding of new resident cultures. Lin Ting-Wei, a third-year Chemistry student, noted that although new residents are Taiwan’s second-largest ethnic group, social attention remains limited. The team began exploring through ethnic cuisine and daily life, and as interviews progressed, Lin was moved by the participants’ touching stories, developing ongoing interest in these issues.
Lin explained that overcoming language barriers was essential. For migrant workers in Taiwan for only two to three years, he had to creatively rephrase complex terms—for example, changing “part-time work” to “earning money”—to establish effective communication. This experience taught him to view matters from diverse perspectives, such as understanding that a migrant worker’s use of perfume reflects politeness rather than the negative stereotypes often assumed. Service Learning Center Director Tu Tse-Yi highlighted that the core goal of the Editorial Team is to train students’ empathy and teamwork skills. These experiences broaden students’ horizons, allowing them to apply professional knowledge for social benefit, enhancing both hard and soft skills, and nurturing future leaders capable of ongoing social concern and contributions to sustainable development.
International Co-Learning: Cross-National Practice in the New Southbound Policy Program
For many years, CYCU’s overseas service learning initiatives have responded to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through cross-national actions. For instance, the “Zhai Volunteer Team” in Cambodia continued over 15 years of Taiwan-Cambodia cooperation, training local high school students as English instructors to ensure the sustainability of educational impact. The “Thai-Myanmar Teen Team” established genuine bonds with local children through summer camps and artistic activities.
CYCU faculty and students also actively bring Taiwan’s experiences abroad. For example, the College of Design collaborates long-term with UCSI University in Malaysia, engaging in watershed co-learning and cultural preservation projects, jointly exploring solutions to climate change and sustainable urban-rural development. Environmental Engineering students in Indonesia promoted climate change awareness and diarrhea prevention, while guiding local university students to apply AI for climate adaptation.
Through local engagement and international practice, CYCU students learn cross-domain communication and develop empathy for society and the world. As the university’s educational philosophy states: “Use technology and humanities knowledge wisely to benefit humanity.” This vision continues to guide CYCU, marking the next milestone in “CYCU 70, Toward Sustainability.”
※CYCU USR Project Website 2025：https://udn.com/upf/ubrand/2025_data/ChungYuan-USR-Infinity-City/