National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST, Taiwan Tech) records, preserves and revitalises cultural heritage through its University Social Responsibility (USR) projects, the Center for General Education's South Side College, the Indigenous Students Resource Centre and student practice. Work covers three areas: local and regional heritage, such as the historic South Side (Chengnan) settlements around campus and Yuanli's rush-weaving craft; national heritage, including the cultures of Taiwan's Indigenous peoples and the Hakka; and the heritage of displaced communities, notably Huanmin New Village at Toad Mountain, a former military dependents' village settled by soldiers and families who came to Taiwan after 1949. Toad Mountain was designated a Taipei cultural landscape in 2016. Students and faculty document these places and traditions through fieldwork, bilingual guiding, courses, exhibitions and design, so that the public can learn and carry them on.
For the 8th annual showcase of the Indigenous Youth Society, Indigenous students from different disciplines and ethnic groups spent more than six months visiting the Nanwang Puyuma community in Taitung to learn from its members. Held from 14 to 24 September 2026, the showcase featured a dining-table exhibition where community members and students shared food and life stories, cultural artefacts, a flower-garland workshop, the lecture "Puyuma, My Homeland: Exploring Memories Across Time and Space" by the former director of the National Museum of Prehistory, and a traditional Puyuma music and dance performance. It covered the Puyuma youth gathering house (palakuwan) and the ties between the community and the city. Inabayan means "hello" in the Nanwang variety of Puyuma.
News links
English: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-152615,r1182.php?Lang=en
The Center for General Education's South Side College signed a memorandum of understanding with the Taipei Culture Foundation's Huanmin New Village at Toad Mountain to support community-based learning, revitalise local spaces and exchange culture. Huanmin New Village brings together military-village heritage, settlement life, hillside ecology and contemporary art. Under the agreement, Taiwan Tech holds courses, workshops and exhibitions in the village. Existing courses already use the site: South Side Short Trips introduces how the settlements developed, Art and Public Environment has students propose art projects for Toad Mountain, Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development (TCG136301, taught in English) studies reuse of Taiwan Tech's Japanese-era dormitories, and Painting South Side Culture records cultural sites in watercolour. The partners will link the village with Treasure Hill Artist Village, Gongguan Shuiyuan Market and Taipei Hakka Culture Park as a "South Side Learning Network".
News links
English: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-151734,r1182.php?Lang=en
中文（臺科大攜手蟾蜍山煥民新村 通識教育走進城南文化廊帶）: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-151078,r167.php?Lang=zh-tw
From 7 to 10 July 2026, the Center for General Education ran a four-day immersive summer school for 13 high-school students, supported by 15 Taiwan Tech undergraduate peer-learning partners and nearly all of the Center's full-time faculty. Participants did fieldwork, environmental observation and hands-on work in three South Side settlements: Treasure Hill Artist Village, Fanglan Mountain and Huanmin New Village, an ageing military dependents' village. They explored how art coexists with residential life, ethnic cultures and military-village heritage, and worked in teams on proposals for cultural preservation, local revitalisation and cultural sustainability.
News links
English: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-151741,r1182.php?Lang=en
中文（2026城人式：台科識視營知識與視野夏校）: https://www.cna.com.tw/postwrite/chi/441512
Hsien-Tse Lai, a master's student in the Department of Design, returned to his hometown of Yuanli, Miaoli, and joined the Taiwan Rush Grass Association. Yuanli's rush weaving was once exported worldwide as hats and mats, but the craft declined as industry moved away and skilled weavers aged. Lai turned knowledge once passed on orally through apprenticeship into illustrated teaching materials and kits that people can use at home, backed by short intensive courses and trained seed teachers. He also helps restore rush fields, introduces visitors to the full cycle from planting and harvesting to weaving, and created rush-themed banquets and ceramic tableware. The average age of participants has fallen from the seventies to the forties. The project won a GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2025 BEST100 (Regional Planning, 100 chosen from 5,225 entries) and a GOOD FOCUS AWARD [New Business Design].
News links
English: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-151749,r1182.php?Lang=en
中文（從家鄉苑裡出發 臺科大學生打造藺草傳承新模式）: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-150464,r167.php?Lang=zh-tw
The Indigenous Students Resource Centre invited Mahengheng Akang, a ritual priest of the Lidaw Amis community, to share first-hand the beliefs and rituals of the Amis shamans (Sikawasay), who lead prayers for blessing, healing and protection and act as a bridge between the community and ancestral spirits.
News links
中文（部落漫遊x阿美族巫師祭儀文化）: https://indigenous-r.ntust.edu.tw/p/404-1108-143142.php?Lang=zh-tw
In the fourth year of its work in Nepal, the USR team continued restoring a century-old traditional house in Upper Pisang, Annapurna region, as the "Story Café", a cultural hub that shares local history and culture with travellers. The retaining wall in front of the house was completed, and the team installed new signposts and a guide map. Earlier, students learned traditional building materials, methods and customs from village elders and surveyed the house to prepare drawings and repair designs.
News links
English: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/16-1000-141506.php?Lang=en
The Indigenous Students Resource Centre and the Indigenous Youth Society based their 2025 annual showcase on students' learning in Jinyue village, an Atayal community in Nan'ao, Yilan. Students turned their fieldwork on Atayal history and culture into four works, Breath, Shuttle, Intersection and Pulse, including traditional rattan weaving, a material used in daily village life. Hata means "to walk, to set out" in Atayal.
News links
English: https://www.secretariat.ntust.edu.tw/p/404-1063-140986.php?Lang=en
中文（臺科大「hata還在路上」走進泰雅族部落）: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-140656,r167.php?Lang=zh-tw
The Department of Civil and Construction Engineering trained 20 Taiwan Tech students as bilingual (Chinese/English) guides at Huanmin New Village. Training covered guiding skills, a guide-robot app and a tour of the Toad Mountain settlement, so that students can tell the stories of the campus's neighbourhood to local and international visitors as part of the university's USR work.
News links
中文（114年臺科大雙語(中、英)導覽員培訓課程--蟾蜍山聚落）: https://www.ct.ntust.edu.tw/ct/articles/view/15223
The South Side College's Urban STREAM Immersive Summer School (1–5 July 2025) took high-school students on fieldwork to South Side settlements including Treasure Hill Artist Village and Huanmin New Village at Toad Mountain. Participants learned about military-village history and the old settlements of Taipei and proposed projects on local issues.
News links
English: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-140046,r1182.php?Lang=en
中文（當科技遇上人文，臺科大城南學院STREAM沉浸式夏校帶領學子進行「城人式」）: https://www.cna.com.tw/postwrite/chi/408817
With funding from the Hakka Affairs Council, the Center for General Education offers Exploring the Aesthetics of Hakka Opera Costume and Makeup (2 credits). Students study Hakka history and the development of Hakka opera, use Hakka floral fabric in costume design, and learn make-up, props and stage gestures. At the end-of-term showcase they performed the classic Hakka opera Tiao Jiu in the Hakka language, alongside two more plays, one mixing Hakka, Taiwanese and English. A Hakka opera performer and researcher assessed the performances.
News links
English: https://www.secretariat.ntust.edu.tw/p/404-1063-138171.php?Lang=en
中文（演繹精彩客家文化 臺科大通識教育教學成果秀戲曲魅力）: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/406-1000-137743,r167.php?Lang=zh-tw
Since 10 February 2025, Taiwan Tech's Center for General Education has been the custodian of the open space and storeroom beside Historic Building No. 92 in the Toad Mountain settlement. The university revitalised this unused space as a base for real-time monitoring of the historic building, a venue for residents to meet and train in disaster evacuation, and a classroom for disaster-preparedness training.
The revitalised space beside Historic Building No. 92 is used as a classroom for disaster-preparedness training .
Taiwan Tech staff and community members inspect the space at Toad Mountain settlement.