1. Preface
Of all the universities and colleges in Taiwan, NTU is the only institution that won Ministry of Education's 2008 Group Award for Outstanding Performance in Promoting Collegiate Sports. Under the joint efforts of the faculty and staff of the Athletic Department of NTU, the University demonstrated meritorious performances in recent years in the areas of sports curriculum and teaching, sporting activities and competitions, sports administration and services in line with the spirit of tradition, innovation, and pursuit of excellence.

NTU's achievements in promoting sportsmanship and sporting activities are universally acknowledged among the universities and colleges in Taiwan. Whether it be in the area of physical education, sporting activities and competitions, administration and service, NTU's athletic performance is unrivalled in every aspect. Winning Ministry of Education's Award is the result of the collective efforts of the colleagues of the Athletic Department, and is thus an honor truly and wholly justified. In the future our efforts will focus on enhancing the quality of physical education, upgrading our research and activities, strengthening the safety and efficacy of sports facilities management, promoting the development of the physical prowess of our students, faculty, staff, and community residents, while cultivating sporting knowledge and developing habits of physical movements.

2. Meritorious Deeds in Promoting Collegiate Sports:
NTU's meritorious performances in promoting sports are exhibited through its diversified physical education curriculum, its excellent results in sporting meets and athletic competitions, its pluralistic intramural sporting activities, its achievements in intercollegiate sports exchanges, and its records in sporting facilities management. The panel of judges at the Ministry of Educaiton's Review Board highly commended NTU's merits in sports promotion and awarded the Outstanding Performance Prize to the University. Described below are NTU's meritorious deeds in recent years regarding sports promotion:

1. Physical education curriculum and teaching:
   Adhering to the spirit of education and innovation, the Athletic Department of NTU mapped out the appropriate courses for the students. For first year students, the courses include "health and physical fitness," "types of group exercises and self defense movements", for second year students, the course offered is "the basic techniques for specific sports," for third year and fourth year students, the course offered is "types of personal and leisure sports." These courses provide students with a diversified physical education curriculum, with a view toward enabling students to cultivate regular habits of exercising so as to enrich their own career planning. Concrete results of the implementation of these courses are as follows:
   Offering diversified choices to students: for first year students, the course items include health and physical fitness, basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, swimming, judo, etc., encompassing over 20 group exercises or self-defense type of sports; for second year students the course items include higher-level training in the basic techniques of basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, table tennis, badminton, tennis, squash, and dance, plus personal and leisure sports. There are 11 elective courses offered, and every semester students enroll in 220 classes, with every class averaging 40 some students.
   Special Physical Education Classes: NTU has adopted the "Guidelines for the implementation of special physical education classes," in accordance with which special classes are offered every semester for physiological and limb adaptation. Publications and lectures: NTU publishes the "NTU Sports Bulletin" and "NTU Sports" on a regular basis. In addition, academic lectures are also held every semester as well as lectures on the techniques of sports. Participants of these lectures include faculty, staff, students, community members and the general public.
   Special Physical Education Classes: NTU has adopted the "Guidelines for the implementation of special physical education classes," in accordance with which special classes are offered every semester for physiological and limb adaptation. Publications and lectures: NTU publishes the "NTU Sports Bulletin" and "NTU Sports" on a regular basis. In addition, academic lectures are also held every semester as well as lectures on the techniques of sports. Participants of these lectures include faculty, staff, students, community members and the general public.
   Class venues: the University currently has 13 outdoor venues available for teaching purposes. In the old stadium there are 5 teaching facilities, in the Medical College stadium there are 3 teaching facilities, and in the Sports Center there are 12 teaching facilities. Taken altogether, the University is well equipped with physical education teaching facilities, not to mention the fact that the University has back up venues for rainy weather. Under no circumstances will the teachers be forced to interrupt their teaching, and the students can always continue their learning regardless of weather condition.
   Teaching quality: All physical education teachers are required to provide the syllabi of their courses and post them on the internet for the students to consult when they choose their courses. Teachers are required to follow the agenda of their syllabi. In the teacher evaluation conducted every semester by the University, the average score is above 4 (5 is the full score), showing that the teaching quality of physical education meets the approval of students.
2. Sporting activities and competitions:
   Upholding a service-oriented philosophy, the University does its best to provide appropriate, lively, and pluralistic sports activities. Consequently, the school has turned into a showcase of sporting events. Aside from the intramural sporting events orchestrated by the Athletic Department, students also organize a wide variety of featured sports under the guidance of the Athletic Department and the Office of Student Affairs for the purpose of promoting the sporting culture of the University community. Although the University does not have a sports-related discipline, it nevertheless abounds with 36 university level sporting teams whose members through hard practice have won top honors in national collegiate sports competitions, as evidenced by the fact that NTU have won the Presidential Award several years in a row in the National Colleges and Universities Sports Meet. In addition, by way of setting up classes for the tutoring of sporting techniques and the staging of domestic and international intercollegiate sporting events, the University provides excellent opportunities and occasions for faculty, students, and community residents to appreciate the value of sportsmanship. Listed below is a capsule statement of the attainments of the University in the area of sports promotion within the last several years:
   1.Intramural Sporting Activities:
   Annual sporting events include the University Sports Meet, the University Swimming Contest, the Campus Marathon Race, the Freshmen Cup , the NTU Cup, the Faculty and Staff Athletic Competition, and the Martial Arts Champion Challenge, etc. In sum, the University spares no efforts in promoting in-school sports activities, in which faculty, staff, and students all enthusiastically participated, resulting in a vibrant campus sporting culture.
   2. Enhancing the health and physical fitness of students:
   It has been ten years since the implementation of the "Health and Physical Fitness" program within the University, in accordance of which the first year students are tested for their physical fitness every year to evaluate their physical condition.
   3. Developing priority sporting items:
   In order to foster winning sports teams to participate in domestic and international sporting competitions, the University selected track and field, swimming, and rugby as the three prioritized items for emphasized development with a view toward achieving glory for the University. In the future the University will continue to develop prioritized sports in accordance with its strength step by step.
   4. Sports team training and performance:
   NTU has 36 men and women sporting teams, encompassing 20 different types of sports. The student members of these teams attend regular practice sessions and often practice on their own in their spare time. As a result, NTU's performance in the national collegiate games has been quite amazing over the years. Starting from 2002, NTU has won the overall championship for men and women in the National Colleges and Universities Sports Meet for five consecutive years, and the University's performance in the single events has been equally outstanding.
   5. Hosting of sports competitions:
   NTU spares no efforts in hosting intercollegiate sports activities and sporting competitions. International sports meet include the AEARU Tennis Tournament for Research Type Universities of Asia, International Handball Invitation Tournament, whereas domestic competitions include the College Cup, the National Civil Engineering Students Cup, the NTU Invitation Cup, etc. On the average NTU hosts three domestic intercollegiate competitions and participates in three international competitions every year. In addition, the University collaborates with the Ministry of Education and the Chinese Taipei University Sports Federation to host various types of sporting competitions. Through their participation in these games, NTU students compete with their peers from other schools, while achieving exchanges with them.
   6. Providing free exercising space and offering sports guidance courses:
   In order to encourage students to cultivate consistent exercising habits, the University holds sports activities on a regular basis. In addition, it offers sports facilities free of charge to students during certain time slots. Students need only to register for the use of these facilities. For the time slots which demand fee payment, the students get to use them at a discounted price. Aside from the diversification of physical education curriculum, the University also offers sports guidance courses, helping faculty, staff and students to learn sporting techniques and foster regular exercising habits.
   7. Formation of sporting associations:
   The University currently has sporting associations in track and field, table tennis, basketball, volleyball, badminton, soccer, handball, tennis, dance, martial arts, and squash, numbering 77 teams in total.
   8. Waging health campaigns and initiating the first official sports leave in the nation:
   The Faculty and Staff Exercise Health Plan has been implemented since 2006, and the contents of which include exercise/health courses for administrative heads and exercise/health courses for regular faculty and staff members. The exercise/health courses for administrative heads were put into effect in March of 2006. Various types of courses were designed to suit the needs of the administrative heads, and the classes averaged about 30 attendants. On the other hand, health and physical fitness courses were designed for regular faculty and staff members. NTU initiated the first "official sports leave" in the nation, allowing faculty and staff to attend health and physical fitness classes during their office hours on official leave of absence. Starting from September of 2006, these courses have been offered in three phases and in 10 terms. Each term lasts for 8 weeks, and the courses are offered once a week. So far there have been 700 faculty and staff members attending these courses.
3. Sports administration and services
   The Athletic Department is in charge of all sports-related affairs of the University. The teachers within the Department serve as referees for various types of sports competitions on campus, as well as consultants and coaches for the various departmental teams. NTU allots a very high budget for the Athletic Department, so sports promotion can be carried out on a full scale.
   As a non-sport school, NTU's sporting facilities rank among the top in the nation in terms of size and number, and the facilities (both indoors and outdoors) are all designed and managed by professional personnel. Since the Sports Center was completed in 2001, NTU set a precedent by establishing a university fund to run the new sports complex. Adopting a corporate governance model, the Sports Center endeavored to achieve financial self-sufficiency by renting out its facilities to outside users. The priority of the Sports Center, however, is to provide teaching space, practice room for the university teams, and venue for university activities. In line with this prioritized concept, the Athletic Department undertook the task of mapping out a comprehensive planning of university sports facilities, establishing a business management model, and drafting up the rules and regulations for the rental of these facilities for the purpose of providing a quality sporting environment.

3. Conclusion
NTU's stellar performances in the promotion of sports are widely acknowledged in the nation. Whether it be in the area of physical education, activities and competitions, administration and services, NTU's achievements have been quite outstanding, so winning Ministry of Education's Award is the result of the collective efforts of the staff of the Athletic Department and an honor truly deserved. As the purposes for sports promotion at NTU lie in enhancing the quality of physical education, upgrading research and activities, strengthening the safety and efficacy of the management of sports facilities, developing the physical fitness of faculty, staff, and students, and improving sports knowledge while cultivating the exercising habits of the University community, in the future the University will integrate the resources of related disciplines to pursue excellent sports and physical education research, to offer top quality leisure facilities for public use, to improve the physical fitness of all faculty, staff and students. By so doing, NTU expects to foster correct sports concepts, while strengthening the competitive ability of its teams.