A New Generation Coming: Building Renovation in CFLL
- Annalise Lin
Over these past three years, the whole campus has had quite a few changes such as the reconstruction of the road at the front gate, the new street lights, and the improvements of the drainage facilities. The College of Foreign Languages and Literatures (CFLL) has gone to great efforts to renovate all the facilities, from the revamping of the classrooms and restrooms, to new instruction equipment. All these renovations provide a better learning environment for students in CFLL, but these renovations have been in the making for a long time, even since CFLL’s founding in 1963. To create a better and more globalized learning environment, the College designed a building with more classrooms that combine language learning and diverse fields together to help students in CFLL obtain more skills for their future careers. Today, fundraising continues for future planned improvements.
The College of Foreign Languages and Literatures in Fu Jen University used to be a two-story building, which was reconstructed in 2016. According to the Dean Kate Liu, there was no SF building in 1993, and the offices of all the instructors in the English department were in the CFLL building. As a result, they had more time together and chatted with each other more often. Wen-ling Su, the former associate dean of the CFLL who has been teaching since 2002 said, “Where the GF building is located, there used to be a two-story language-lab building. I remember having taught CC classes in some of the cozy, small classrooms on the second floor. Some of them would accommodate no more than 15 students, but they were great for building rapport and intimacy.”
In 2020, the first floor of the FG building was redesigned around the concept of globalization. Furthermore, Dean Liu also put three iMac computers and a projector in the lobby area for students. The sofa and bar section allows students to chat with each other to build community. According to Professor Wen-ling Su, Dean Liu has made great efforts to renovate the old CFLL building, such as revamping restrooms, refurbishing multimedia classrooms, and constructing the Center for Cross-Cultural & Cross-Disciplinary Communication located on the fifth floor of LB. However, all these works were not only through the efforts of the Dean and the departments, but also required a fund-raising project.
The FG building began a fundraising project and welcomed the alumni to donate money and help the departments create a more comfortable and complete learning environment for the students. Now, there is a new project called CFLL Empowerment Project that shows all the classrooms planned for renovation, and encourages people to donate money to help fulfill this mission. “Of more concern to English majors and alumni is the upgrade and maintenance of Litu (理圖), the College Theatre, where rehearsals for Annual Plays and Senior Plays are held regularly. The College is expected to run and maintain the theater by itself,” said Professor Su.
Dean Liu said that she hopes that the CFLL building, a physical sign of innovation and sustainability, can help all students be engaged in classes and outside of them in local and global communities. “Innovation happens when classroom walls no longer mean confinement in learning; likewise, sustainability can be achieved only when efforts are made continually from generation to generation,” said Dean Liu.
