Soochow University Welcomes Former Finance Minister Chang as Chair Professor

Former Minister of Finance Sheng-Ford Chang received warm welcome in a tea party held on September 20^th by Soochow University to mark the hiring of Chang as Chair Professor for the 2016–17 academic year. Chang promised to nurture SCU students and promote industry-university cooperation with his knowledge and expertise in finance.

In his welcome remarks, SCU President Wei-Ta Pan praised Chang, who had worked for the government in taxation and financial territories for 38 years, for his extensive experiences in the field of taxation practice. He was awarded a first-rate financial medal and was named Finance Minister of the year 2015 by London-based magazine The Banker for promoting a number of tax reforms during his tenure as the Minister of Finance. Chang was the most recently hired former government official by SCU after the school recruited several economics and finance heavyweights including Sean C. Chen, Koong-Lian Kao, Jia-Dong Shea, Yun-Peng Chu, Chen-Chung Deng, etc. President Pan mentioned that hiring the best professors is every university’s top priority, and that it is an honor to have Chang as SCU’s faculty, which will take the Department of Accounting to the next level. 

The dean of School of Business Tsu-Tan Fu stressed that Soochow University values the combination of theory and practice, especially industry-university collaboration, which is also the school’s ideal of education. Fu believed Chang’s erudition and practical experiences will be of great help in guiding SCU teachers and students to form the research team of financial and economic policies and to make contributions to Taiwan.

Chang remarked that SCU is like a family and its warmth can be felt ever since his employment on June 1^st; additionally, he was also invited to join SCU Alumnus Chorus. In his view, Soochow University boasts a liberal academic atmosphere and serves as a cradle for talents. In the future, he is going to promote industry-academy collaboration and cultivate outstanding students by teaching his specialty on Taxation.

Chang graduated from National Taiwan University with a business major, and received his master’s degrees in finance at National Chengchi University and Iowa State University. He had worked in taxation and financial territories for 38 years, and had been the director of Taxation Administration, Ministry of Finance, Minister of Finance, the governor of Central Bank of Republic of China and so on. During his term as the Minister of Finance, Chang committed himself to promoting the Robust Financial System and the Feedback Tax, levying the luxury tax and the income tax, and integrating the housing and land tax system.

Formally recruited by Soochow University as chair professor for Soochow law and business lectures, Chang will offer new courses like ‘inland tax law and practice’ and ‘studies on taxation’ in Master’s program and in-service Master’s program in the Department of Accounting. It is in the hope that Chang’s experiences in his previous posts in taxation and financial policy-making would enhance the academic research momentum of the Department of Accounting. The Department of Accounting would benefit from Chang’s practical knowledge, and have a better grasp of future trend in taxation policy so as to cultivate students’ competence in tax management and planning from a more macroscopic perspective.