Revitalizing cultural consciousness in Taiwan’s higher education: Ambitions and Tensions

Contextualizing cultural foundations of modern university development has increasingly been ubiquitous. This paper probes cultural awareness of Taiwan’s academia in times of change. Despite the government-driven motives to impose Western indicators in measuring success, the study’s empirical evidence reveals that Taiwanese academics cherish their traditional culture. Ambitions were spawned from attempts to underpin their higher education system along cultural lines, while tensions were escalated when coping with the government policy benchmarking against Western standards. Citing the perspectives of two premier universities’ executives and faculty members, Taiwan’s academic society shares cultural affinities to rally a blended model that synthesizes its longstanding indigenized values and imported Western experiences. Revitalizing cultural consciousness calls for alternatives to Taiwan’s existing Western-oriented model of higher education.