Introduction

Background

Taiwan Provincial Normal Institute, the original name of National Taiwan Normal University, was established on June 5, 1946; our department was originally called the Department of History and Geography. On June 5, 1955, the Institute became a university, Taiwan Provincial Normal University, with the Department of History and Geography belonging to the College of the Humanities; this department split into two separate departments in 1962. In 1967 Taiwan Provincial Normal University became the National Taiwan Normal University.

The main goals of our department are: to produce top-quality professional historians and history research materials, and also, to train outstanding high school history teachers. In our teaching, besides emphasizing the fundamentals of historical research and training in related subjects, we also stress the development of pedagogical and research skills, for we are molding professionals.

Continuing its upward path in professionalization and scholarship, in August 1970 the department began a masters degree program and expanded its offerings to include a doctoral program in 1977. From 1978 our department began to offer education courses during the summer semester for middle and high school history teachers from all over Taiwan, and in 2003 began a masters degree program for middle and high school teachers to gain education credits.

Faculty

Our faculty offer a wide range of courses, in Chinese, Taiwanese, and Western history, and are organized as broad survey courses; by chronological period; by country and on special topics. Courses are taught by specialists in each field; at present our department has 21 full-time professors and 16 adjunct professors for a total of 37.

Curriculum

We stress historiographical methodology and theory, developing middle/high school historical materials and methods, and teachers’ training.On the basis of their elective credit courses, undergraduate students choose either the General Historical Studies Group or History Pedagogy Group.Our courses include: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Chinese history, including courses on the Sui-Tang-Five Dynasties Periods; Song Dynasty History, and Ming-Qing History. Also, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Western history; Chinese cultural history; Survey of Taiwan History; and a World History Survey course. In addition, we offer American history, Japanese history, Southeast Asian history, History of Western Political Thought, History of Western Science, and a course on Historiography and Anthropology.

We also have inter-disciplinary classes like Audio-Visual Historiography, Museology and History, and Oral History.

Publications

Since 1972, every year in June we publish our Bulletin of Historical Research; our latest issue is number 38.We assist our graduate students in publishing their theses and dissertations: our latest issue is number 30.

We also publish the biannual journal History Education and the journal Historical Cultivation.

Resources

We have a substantial collection of books in our departmental library with over 50,000 books, and a Special Collection numbering 5500. We subscribe to 548 journals, 392 of which are Chinese, 76 in Western Languages, 48 in Japanese, and 32 in Korean. In addition, we have a History Education Research Room, with over 1000 types of materials, and a good collection of audio-visual equipment and materials available to teachers and students. Lastly, we also have a collection of middle-school and high-school textbooks from Taiwan and abroad.

Future Prospects for our Graduates

As originally our department was the only department in the country to train middle and high school history teachers, our graduates are employed, after a period of additional practical training, as teachers and administrators throughout Taiwan. Our graduates also find positions as researchers, in museums, in cultural centers, and other related institutions.

a) Further Study: Students may choose to continue on to graduate school or go abroad to continue their education.

b) With their schools’ approval, teachers in middle and high schools can take courses in our department to obtain education credits, as mentioned above.