Previously known as the Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, Tamkang University had set up the Department of Business in 1958, and the Dept. of Accounting and Statistics (an evening undergraduate program) in 1963. Two years later, the Department of Business was further divided into four departments: the Dept. of Business and Industrial Management, the Dept. of Accounting and Statistics, the Dept. of Banking and Insurance, and the Dept. International Trade. The founding chairperson of the Dept. of Accounting and Statistics was Prof. Jui, Pao-Kung. The daytime and evening undergraduate programs each offered an accounting program in 1968 and 1970, respectively. They were predecessors to the Department of Accounting. The daytime undergraduate accounting program was re-structured as the Department of Accounting in 1973, whereas the evening undergraduate accounting program was also set up as the Dept. of Accounting in 1974, still part of the evening college. In 1980, the Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences was officially elevated to be Tamkang University, and founded the College of Management, to which the Dept. of Accounting belonged. During this period, the daytime and evening undergraduate accounting programs were two independent administrative units. Former chairs of the department’s daytime undergraduate accounting program were: Shen, Shu-Hsiung (1968-1977), Tsai, Hsin-Fu (1977-1983), and then Shen, Shu-Hsiung (1983-1985). Former chairs of the department’s evening undergraduate accounting program were: Yu, Shih-Ching (1970-1978), Wang, Mei-Lan (1978-1984), and Huang, Cheng-Li (1984-1985). In August 1985, the daytime and evening undergraduate account ting programs were merged into one and placed under the College of Management. Following this integration, the chairs of the Dept. of Accounting were: Huang, Cheng-Li (1985-1993), Wang, Mei-Lan (1993-1999), Huang, Cheng-Li (1999-2005), Chen, Jui-Chih (2005-2011), Chang, Bao-Guang (2011-2015) and Yen, Sin-Hui (2015-2019). The incumbent chair, Kung, Fan-Hua, has taken charge of the department since 2019.

In the early years after the department was founded, we had focused on imparting knowledge. With the concerted efforts of all faculty and chairpersons over the last decades, our department has taken steps to change faculty composition, improve educational quality, increase research momentum, and enhance coaching mechanism, in hopes of forming a cradle for developing students’ professional knowledge and skills in the financial services industry. Over time, the number of students has kept rising. We started to recruit one more class in 1981, and then the third class in 1997, as a response to a tremendous demand in finance and accounting talents in recent years. At that point, the number of undergraduate students (evening programs included) reached its peak at nearly 1,500.

As more professors with PhDs were hired, the department planned to set up graduate institutes. The master’s program and the executive master’s program were each offered in 1994 and 2000, respectively, in hope to actively cultivate young researchers. In response to the government’s promotion of recurrent education, we set up an accounting program under the Doctoral Program of Management Sciences in 2004. We began to publish the Journal of Contemporary Accounting in 2000, in the hope of improving the research capacities of faculty and students alike. This journal has gained universal recognition with a joint effort by editor-in-chiefs, area editors, and a team of editors over the years. Since 2010, the journal has been taken in charge by the Tamkang Accounting Educational Foundation so as to promote intercollege collaboration. It was ranked by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a core journal by TSSCI in 2017. With the great support of Win Semiconductors Corporation, we’ve held the Win Semi- Journal of Contemporary Accounting Master Thesis Award annually since 2018, giving out ample incentives for professors and students alike to get their research papers published.

In 2000, we invited some of our senior professors and outstanding alumni of the department to establish the Tamkang Accounting Educational Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Foundation), in order to ensure the sustainable development of the journal, recruit more outstanding faculty members, encourage both faculty and students to publish papers, and build an alumni network. The Foundation has continued to prosper over the past two decades, as it helps the department’s alumni association connect with the Tamkang University Accountants Alumni’s Association. This helps to build an effective platform where all alumni from college and master’s programs can engage in exchanges of ideas. Needless to say, these two associations have provided generous financial support for the Dept. of Accounting.

With plummeting birth rates and the younger cohort wants an early entry into the labor market, however, the evening undergraduate program was replaced with the bachelor program of extension education (refer to as the extension education program) in 1997. Even so, the number of students of the extension education program was rapidly shrinking over the years, and the program had to stop its student recruitment in 2019. The executive master’s program is also faced with challenges in student recruitment and tries to find ways toward transformation. The accounting program under the Doctoral Program of Management Sciences had stopped its student recruitment in 2014. Even the department’s undergraduate program was once cut back to two classes between 2011 and 2017. Yet with the effort of both faculty and students, and the active support of alumni, the University approved of our department’s resuming to recruitment of three classes in 2018.

In response to this trend, the department has actively promoted cooperative education, and helped our students find intern jobs at some of the large accounting firms in summer and winter. We also offer vocational credit programs for college seniors, so as to prepare students for the workplace. We’ve divided the master’s program into academic and practical sub-programs since 2015. The students enrolled in the “academic” sub-program are dedicated to research, whereas the course takers of the “practical” sub-program are allowed to work three days a week, and submit technical reports instead of theses. Over the past ten years, Mr. Zhou, Yung-Tsai, a distinguished alumnus and chairman of Hiwin Technologies Corp., has donated large sums of money to help our students to take national exams for civil service and get various professional certifications. This enables them to sharpen their competitive edges in the workplace. The department also spares no effort in promoting internationalization. Students are encouraged to register for credit classes or even get a degree at other sister universities overseas. The department had signed an MOU with CPA Australia and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in 2014 and 2016, respectively, in order to waive some exams and help students quickly gain international qualifications. In November 2019, the department also signed an MOU with the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), providing the CMA scholarship to cover the CMA exam fees.

The department has carried out the tradition of excellence in teaching, and has been devoted to recruiting high-prestige faculty members and maintaining an evolving curriculum design, so as to develop young students with professional expertise and integrity in the accounting industry and ensure education sustainability. With our reputation and conspicuous performance over the past decades, our graduates are in great demand and have no problem securing a good job. The department has received multiple awards for being ranked among TKU’s excellent departments since 2016. Currently the department has roughly 800 undergraduate and graduate students. The number of alumni has reached over 10,000; many of them have built a successful career as an accountant or established good careers in the academia, industry, or public sector. Twelve alumni of our department have so far been awarded with the Tamkang University Golden Eagle Award, which outnumbers the recipients of all other departments, and sets a good example to current students.        

Former Chair of the Department,

Huang, Cheng-Li

March 31, 2020