Organization of the Department

         Following the “Articles of Association of the Department of International Enterprise, STUST,” we established a number of committees, including the curriculum planning committee, the reading material and the equipment planning committee, the faculty evaluation committee, the department self-evaluation committee, and the student career counseling committee.

Each committee plays a proper role, so that the department can work smoothly and successfully and that resources can be effectively utilized. For more details with respect to responsibilities of each individual committee, please refer to the rules and regulations specific to each committee. The responsibilities of each committee are described below:

( 1 ) Department Committee:

The department committee is the highest decision-making committee. It meets at least twice every semester and may hold additional meetings when necessary. Important issues will be discussed and resolved by the teachers, and members of the other committees will be elected. In addition to discussing issues about research, teaching, service, and the allocation of funds, the department committee is responsible for making amendments to the articles of association of the department. Major decisions are made by relevant committees before they are brought to the department committee for further discussions and the decision of the department.

( 2) The Department Curriculum Planning Committee:

It is responsible for planning, creating, and evaluating the curriculum of the department. The committee meets once every semester and may hold additional meetings when necessary.

(3 ) Reading Material and Equipment Planning Committee:

The committee is responsible for planning the reading material and equipment of the department and for related purchases. The committee meets to discuss and make decisions before purchase plans are submitted to the Office of General Affairs for bidding. The Committee meets once every semester and may hold additional meetings when necessary.

(4 ) Faculty Evaluation Committee:

It is responsible for appointments, promotions, dismissals, suspensions, training, extensions, awards and grants, and other matters. The committee meets twice every semester as a routine, once at the beginning and the other by the end of the semester. It may hold additional meetings when necessary. Meetings are generally held before the college faculty evaluation committee meets. Reviews and admissions of applications for on-the-job study are held in accordance with rules and regulations of the school. Applications for domestic and foreign training, for example, need permission from the department faculty evaluation committee, the college faculty evaluation committee, and the university faculty evaluation committee.

For faculty evaluation and promotion, reports of three aspects--teaching, research, and service—are made concerning teachers to be promoted before the final reports are submitted to the college faculty evaluation committee and the General Personnel Office for evaluation by invited professors from other universities. Accordingly, teachers of our department are evaluated and upgraded on a reasonable basis. In addition, members of the department meeting are elected as representatives to participate in the college administrative council and the university faculty evaluation committee, participating in school-level decisions. The sophisticated evaluation system of STUST was approved and recognized by the Ministry of Education. In 2008, STUST was authorized to hold a self- regulated system of evaluation and promotion. As the first private university of science and technology authorized by the MOE, STUST was allowed to develop a promotion policy based on the characteristics of technical and vocational education, thus making its development more in line with the spirit of technical and vocational education.

(5 ) Department Self-Evaluation Committee:

To enhance the quality and raise the standards of its teaching, research, and administration, STUST has developed a complete self-evaluation system with stipulated measures to implement the self-evaluation system. In accordance with Article VI of STUST Self-Evaluation Regulations, our department stipulated a self-evaluation policy and a committee to implement it. The committee is constituted by 7 members, including the chairman as coordinator, 2 of our faculty, 1 representative from the college, and 2 invited off-campus members. The self- evaluation is implemented regularly on a biannual basis.

(6 ) Recruitment and Admissions Committee:

The committee makes decisions on the procedures, operation, and schedule of recruitment work. It also makes decisions on conditions, modes, items, and other matters related to admissions and recommendations. In addition, the committee is responsible for setting the enrollment work schedule, preparing promotional materials, and other related matters.

(7 ) Student Career Counseling Committee:

To provide students with counseling with respect to their learning, career planning and future employment, the department set up a student career counseling committee. The committee is constituted by all the teachers of the department and further divided into groups that help students learn and plan career with advice and counseling on course-taking, internship, employment, career planning, and alumni contact. Its main functions are as follows: organizing meetings of career counseling, course-taking, and employment counseling for freshmen and transferred students; contacting companies for internships and providing students with employment counseling and job opportunities; and keeping contact with alumni. The committee is responsible for setting up counseling approaches to course-taking counseling, planning on modes of counseling, forming effectiveness evaluation, assessing the effectiveness of counseling, and improving the entire mechanisms. The committee meets to discuss the counseling approaches at the beginning of each semester; when the semester ends, it meets again to analyze and discuss the effectiveness of counseling and to improve the mechanism.

    To enhance the effectiveness of students’ essential learning, in 2006 STUST began to promote "TA supplementary schooling system.” Each supplementary class is led by a teaching assistant—a graduate student or an undergraduate of a higher grade with better academic performance. These teaching assistants help students with lower performance, in particular those from the lower 20 percent of a class. In order to enhance the effectiveness and improve the quality of TA counseling, STUST set up the “Effectiveness Assessment Measures of Teaching Assistants under the STUST Teaching Excellence Project."