Brief History
1928: Taihoku Imperial University, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Law
1945: National Taiwan University, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Law
1946: College of Law, Department of Law, Political Science and Economics
1947: Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Business merged into NTU College of Law at Hsu-Chow Road Campus
1960: Establishment of Department of Sociology
1974: Establishment of Graduate Institute of National Development
1987: College of Management was established and independent from College of Law
1991: Establishment of Graduate Institute of Journalism
1999: NTU College of Law was divided into College of Social Sciences and College of Law
2000: Graduate Institute of Three People’s Principles was renamed as Graduate Institute of National Development
2002: Establishment of Department of Social Work
2014: Moved to main campus and establishment of Graduate Institute of Public Affairs
Summary
This historical development of the NTU College of Social Sciences (COSS) is itself an abbreviated history of the research in the social sciences in Taiwan. After the Second World War, the Imperial University was renamed as the National Taiwan University. The former College of Liberal Arts and Political Science was separated into the Colleges of Liberal Arts and College of Law. The College of Law at that time comprised the Department of Law, Political Science, Economics, and Management. After the establishment of the College of Management in 1987 and the College of Law in 1999, the College of Social Sciences was formally incepted in 1999 and developed into its current structure. Mirroring these organizational changes, our campus was also originally situated in the Hsu-Chow Road campus and finally relocated back to the NTU main campus and into the new award-winning building in 2014. With the completion of the relocation and new College building, all the COSS departments, graduate institutes, and research centers are now adjacent to each other, fostering stronger partnership and synergy within COSS and with other NTU Colleges.
A Walk Through History
The College of Social Sciences was previously located at No. 21 Hsu-Chow Road, Taipei City, one of the campuses of the National Taiwan University. This campus was formerly the location of the Taipei Secondary Business School during the Japanese colonial era. Prior to the end of the World War II, the School was changed to the Taipei Economic Professional College. After theJapanese surrender in 1945, the School was taken over by the government to establish the Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Business under the Taiwan Provincial Government. Due to the Taiwan Provincial Government’s limited budget, the Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Business was integrated in 1947 into the already established College of Law of the National Taiwan University -- which consisted of the Department of Law, the Department of Political Science & the Department of Economics. In August of 1948,the Department of Commerce was established -- at the time this was Taiwan’s only management education department. In 1959, the Commerce Department was divided into the Business Administration Division, International Trade Division, and Accounting and Banking Division.In 1960, the College of Law established the Department of Sociology. In the same year, the Department of Law, the Department of Political Science, and the Department of Economics all set up divisions within their respective departments in order to provide students
a better environment for education.
In 1955, the College of Law established its first graduate school: the Graduate Institute of Law containing the Division of Law and the Division of Economic Theory. In the following year, the Graduate Institute of Law was further separated into the Graduate Institute of Law, the Graduate Institute of Political Science, and the Graduate Institute of Economics. In 1963, the Accounting and Banking Division was subsequently split into an Accounting Division and a Banking Division, thus re-organizing the Commerce Department into four divisions. In 1967, the Department of Law set up an Evening Division. Since then, the College of Law has established the Graduate Institute of Sociology and the Graduate Institute of Commerce in 1972, the Graduate Institute of San-Min-Chu-I in 1974, and the Graduate Institute of Journalism in 1991. In 1985, the Commerce Department’s four divisions were upgraded to department-level: the Business Administration Department, Finance Department, Accounting Department and International Trade Department. In 1987, the four departments officially formed the College of Management. In 2000, the Graduate Institute of San-Ming-Chu-I changed its name to the Graduate Institute ofNational Development. The Department and Graduate Institute of Social Work was separated from the Department and Graduate Institute of Sociology in 2002.
In order to adjust to our country's political and social development and follow the international trend, the National Taiwan University decided in 1995 to upgrade the Department and Graduate Institute of Law into a college, namely the new College of Law. The other departments and graduate institutes of the former College of Law formed another college, namelythe College of Social Sciences. This change was achieved in August 1999.
Since the College of Social Sciences lacks enough space for its future development, the National Taiwan University decided to move the College back to the main campus in two phases. During the first phase, the Graduate Institute of National Development, the Graduate Institute of Journalism, as well as the Department and Graduate Institute of Sociology were all moved back in 1995. In the second phase, all the remaining departments and graduate institutes moved back to the main campus, and a new building was completed to host the College of Social Sciences. The entire relocation concluded in the summer of 2014.
In the previous COSS campus, the main red-brick building was constructed in 1919, and has been maintained carefully as the oldest campus building left in Taiwan from the Japanese Colonial Era. It was named an official historical site by the Taipei City Government in 1998.