National Taiwan University aspires to create positive energy for our society through integrity, responsibility, compassion, as well as positive power. Our efforts were reflected during this year's NTU Anniversary Celebration, where we paid special recognition to nine distinguished alumni and presented Student Social Contribution Awards to three students who had made good use their time outside of the classroom to work for the betterment of society. The three students were Teng-Ju Ku of the Department of Social Work, Chia-You Kuo of the Department of Business Administration, and Fang-Ying Lee of the Institute of Health Policy and Management. We believe that their spirit of giving is worthy of our emulation, and we aim to apply the approach of "students encouraging students" in order to promote an atmosphere of giving back to society on campus.

Since the students of NTU bring highly diverse qualities to campus, it is up to the university to provide them with a friendly environment in which they feel comfortable, happy, and always at home as they pursue their studies at NTU. Aiming to create such an environment, we have recently started an explanation-sign campaign to introduce the plants located around campus to the students as well as to the public. The signs feature QR codes that allow people to use their smart phones to directly access information about the plants on campus. Beautification and renovation work is also underway for the buildings lining both sides of Royal Palm Boulevard, and we are also making preparations to reconnect Liugongjun Pool to Drunken Moon Lake, which will inject greater vitality into the campus and inspire us to cherish our drinking water sources while remembering our roots.

Additionally, when our students told us about the inconvenience of returning to their hometowns to vote in the recent nine-in-one elections, we immediately acted to arrange chartered "democracy buses" for them to facilitate their participation in democratic politics. All in all, when it comes to the betterment of society, the University spares no effort in helping students achieve their goals.

Although each person has a different definition of what constitutes an outstanding student, I believe that most of these definitions would fall close to NTU's motto of "Integrity, Diligence, Fidelity, and Compassion." As we work to enhance academic quality, I hope our students and faculty can also do more to benefit society. As Taiwan has provided an enormous amount of support to NTU, we seek to give back to society by producing outstanding professionals capable of creating the greatest benefits to mankind.