Since its establishment in 1984, the College of Management, National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) has made many accomplishments. Nevertheless, amidst the rise of Chinese universities and the leap of universities in Singapore and Hong Kong, the College of Management still needs to continuously improve itself. In order to strengthen team cohesiveness among the College of Management, its Departments and Programs, improve the creativity, communication and problem-solving abilities of the administrative directors and staff, as well as identify the future positioning of the College and the development of its highlights. The College of Management hosted the Administrative Director Consensus Camp at Howard Beach Resort Kenting during March 30 and 31, 2019. The Consensus Camp was attended by a total of 24 staff and 3 College Advisory Committee members. The attendees held vigorous discussions aimed to help the College advance towards a better direction.
The World Café methodology was adopted for hosting dialogues during the Consensus Camp. Three topics were set aside for discussion, including of “Student Recruitment and Teaching”, “Academic Research and Industry-Academy Cooperation “, “Organization Administration and Marketing”. The three discussions were hosted by the three College Advisory Committee members, including Professor Jason Huang (黃賀), Dr. (h.c.) Owen Hsieh (謝進南), and Chairman Chung-Cheng Tu (凃忠正), who also offered their valuable suggestions. College of Management Dean San-Yih Hwang (黃三益) pointed out that the attendees took turn to move from table to table to discuss the three topics and shared their opinions on the respective topic, while giving feedback on the problems they encountered on their jobs and exchanging ideas to identify actionable opportunities for the College of Management.
During the Consensus Camp, in addition to proposing solutions to the problems that the College of Management had been facing on the three major topics, many teachers mentioned that regarding the future development of the College of Management in terms of its highlights, previously the College’s big data analytics courses related to business application had attracted more than 200 students from interdisciplinary departments. In addition, the College had offered micro courses that combined big data analytics with marketing or finance, which trained students to develop solid analytical skills who went on to win awards in some big data competitions. Hence, “Big Data Analysis in Business” could remain one of the College’s strong suits, which could be further developed.
After an intensive discussions, the teachers jointly pointed out a number of reasons for improving the current state of the College, and brainstormed and proposed several feasible directions. It was hoped that through discussions in a relaxed setting, team cohesiveness could be further increased, consequently improving the soft power as well as the international visibility of the College of Management and achieving its vision of making the College a leading college in Asia. Besides the formal discussion concerning the college affairs, the Consensus Camp had also invited the teachers’ families to travel together on this trip, and arranged a guided tour of the Taipower Exhibition Center in Southern Taiwan and fruit popsicles made with desalinated seawater for them to taste. This camp did not merely help the family members to get acquainted with one another, but also helped them bond together, making this event a huge success.
