Dean of NTU's Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. Chun-chieh Huang, accompanied by the Vice Dean, Dr. Chien-fu Lin, took a trip to the U.S. from April 5th to April 11th, in which they visited the Duke University, the Research Triangle Park, and the Stanford University. The purpose of their trip was to exchange academic experiences with the humanities and social science units of the three academic institutions, and to discuss future cooperation possibilities.

The NTU duo arrived at Durham, North Carolina on April 6th, where they were received by Professor Emerson M. S. Niou, a professor of Politics at Duke University and a NTU alumnus. In that afternoon they toured the garden within the Duke University campus, and were very impressed with the humanistic quality of its design. In the following two days, Dean Huang and his associate paid visits to four institutes, which are, the National Humanities Center of the Research Triangle, the Social Science Research Institute of Duke University, the Asia Pacific Studies Institute of Duke University, and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University. During the visits, Dean Huang engaged in in-depth talks with the heads of the various institutions, sharing his personal experiences with them , and inquired about the operating mechanisms of each institute, their systems for inviting visiting scholars, the sources of their funding and the allocation of the funds, and, lastly, how they nourish the young scholars.