Introduction of the Western Culinary Arts Department

The department is the very first professional educational institute in the country that has obtained approval to prepare for the establishment of a western-style cuisine. The western-style meal section of the culinary branch was set up in 1995 and became an independent branch in 1997. It was later upgraded into a department in 2000 and subsequently began to recruit 4-year students.

 The very purpose for the creation of this department is to cultivate ‘modern management for western-style cuisine’. In following the school-establishment belief of this school, practice counts as a priority.  The department has principally concentrated on helping students to obtain licenses for western-style cuisine and related skills and arts.

 In addition, curriculum design has both accommodation to humanistic aesthetics, management and operations, and is also a related discipline programming for nutrition courses. It is hoped that the curriculum will be able to enhance the student form a holistic point of view and strengthen their professional academic needs for the future job-market. During the four year time study, the department has, for some professional and core courses, designed at least 10 focused programs, such as, an introduction to hospitality, theory of food preparation, practice of western meal preparation, food hygiene and safety, nutrition, hospitality and service, production of western snacks, cost control, marketing, and the discussion of special projects.       

Furthermore, the department will also have the above-mentioned professional subjects planned as the compulsory credits of students for ‘cultivation courses for teachers at middle school hospitality and catering, and pre-job educational programs’. In order to cope with its professional attributes, the department will place French as its second foreign language. In addition, the department will, starting from 2005, work to implement a one-year new internship system outside school so that culinary theory and practice can complementarily achieve the program design. On the other hand, international and interactive teaching design is always considered as the unique competitiveness of the school; thus, we have concluded both medium and long-term contracts to hire expatriate and noted chefs to hold classes in our department, domestic and foreign seminar chefs from the trade will be invited for demo-teaching, one-year internship outside school, diversified banquet production within the school, and also half-monthly overseas visits and internships prior to graduation. All of the events are planned in order to cultivate a keen and proactive future for participants of western cuisine with an international vision.

Educational Objectives

      The department has been established in order to equip students with professional skills regarding western meal cuisine, administrative management, and creativity development as its mission of teaching. Based on this, the department has stipulated some stage-development objectives which are elaborated as follows:

 Short-range objectives    

  ◆ improve the teaching faculty structure, strengthen skills of cooperation project between school and industry, and balance theoretical development.

◆ strengthen the assistance for acquiring a C-class technicians’ license for western cuisine , and formulate a timely award promotion for a culinary competition passport so as to encourage students to obtain a professional license before graduation. 

◆ continue to select foreign master chefs with varied teaching experience in the preparation of western cuisine for teaching so as to upgrade the international teaching of the department.

◆ facilitate exchange mechanism of students and teachers from overseas sister schools, and intensify student recruitment activity from South-east Asian countries, and appeal to foreign and overseas Chinese citizens to study at the department. 

◆ strengthen academic and technique upgrades among teachers so as to enhance research competence of academics and practice at full-scale, thus enriching the content of the teaching.

◆ continue to sponsor related academic and practice seminars in order to strengthen interactions between teachers and students from the department with the academics and the industry.

   Medium-range objectives

  ◆ formulate a textbook on fundamental preparation of western-style cuisine’ in order to help teachers with return mechanism of cross internship to the industry.

◆ realize language enhancement of students in learning foreign languages (English and French), and strengthen competitiveness of foreign languages.

◆ continue to encourage students with excellent culinary skills to take part in related domestic and overseas culinary competitions so as to improve and better their culinary skills and expand their international vision.

◆ intensify the establishment of internship working opportunities with the trade in Europe and the States to help students with competition at an international level.

◆ actively open and build up sisterhood relationships with internationally noted culinary schools in order to strengthen international professional exchange.

◆ establish a standardized system for the culinary curriculum so as to enhance teaching quality.

Long-range objectives

   ◆ publish a professional journal on culinary skills.

◆ plan a culinary competition and design the curriculum in order to consolidate competition participation competition of students.

◆ set up a graduate institute on the health diet industry.