At CMU I’ve come to appreciate that the best research and the best teaching are two sides of the same coin. When faculty conduct cutting‑edge research, it enriches their teaching. When faculty teach well, it refines their thinking and often leads to new research ideas. My work has been about aligning educational rigor with our institutional research ambitions so that we build a faculty culture that thrives in both arenas.
The Teacher Development Center and Faculty Growth
At CMU the Faculty Development Center plays a central role in supporting faculty. The Center’s mission is to elevate teaching quality, foster lifelong learning for faculty and promote a learning environment where teaching and research advance together. Through programs like new‑faculty orientation, teaching workshops, peer professional communities and faculty mentor-mentee meetings, the Center helps create a robust support system for academic staff.
New Faculty Onboarding
The Faculty Development Center provides downloadable documents and resources for new faculty orientation. This kind of structure helps align individual faculty goals with institutional priorities, and it enables mentoring, clearer career planning and accountability. Faculty professional communities self‑organize to share teaching practices, research insights and challenges
Integrating AI and Technology into Teaching Practice
One of the most exciting areas at CMU is how we’re integrating advanced teaching technologies into the classroom. We’ve adopted AI‑enabled teaching environments, cloud‑based teaching tools and virtual desktop solutions in computer classrooms to respond to evolving teaching needs. The university offers workshops on how to use generative AI in teaching, how to design digitally‑enhanced lessons and how to create interactive classrooms. As a researcher I believe this is critical. When faculty use innovative tools and teaching methods it not only benefits our students but also stimulates faculty to think differently about how research and teaching connect.
Aligning Teaching with Research Ambitions
In my own role as a professor and researcher, I emphasize that faculty should not treat teaching as a burden separate from research. Instead I encourage them to view teaching as an opportunity to refine their research questions, integrate latest findings into the classroom and engage students in research‑informed learning. When faculty teach with current research examples, students benefit, faculty sharpen their concepts, and both teaching and research advance together.
Mentoring Faculty to Mentor Students
One of my passions is mentoring junior faculty so they become strong mentors themselves. I guide them in how to supervise students, how to integrate research projects into teaching labs, how to publish with students and how to build international collaborations. This cascades down so that our students benefit from a culture where teaching, research, mentorship and global engagement are interwoven.
Global Engagement, Faculty and Student Development
We strive to foster Faculty development including international teaching and research exposure. We have bilingual and English‑medium instruction training workshops for faculty to enhance their global teaching competence. By encouraging faculty to think globally, bring international perspectives into their teaching, and engage students in research collaborations abroad, we create a globally‑aware research‑teaching ecosystem.
My Personal Commitment and Vision
As someone who trained abroad and returned to Taiwan, I feel a strong responsibility to shape an academic culture where faculty thrive in research and teaching, where students gain from both, and where institutional systems support excellence and innovation. I strive to model this by conducting translational research, teaching across disciplines, mentoring junior faculty and contributing to faculty development programs. My hope is that CMU becomes a place where faculty feel empowered to innovate in research, explore new teaching methods and guide the next generation of scientists.