The 6th HLU Annual Conference Opens at National Chi Nan University, Series 2 of 9
Puli, Nantou, Taiwan · May 6, 2026
By: Genevieve Balance Kupang
The Campus That Teaches Before the Conference Begins
The campus of National Chi Nan University is home to a feathered treasure called 台灣藍鵲, the Taiwan Blue Magpie. It is regarded as one of the most exquisite birds in the world. It is endemic to this island, as Vice President Dr. Yung-Ping (Emilio) Tseng kindly told me. The law protects it. The Taiwanese people love it. And so do their foreign guests.
Taiwan’s Blue Magpie (台灣藍鵲), perched atop NCNU’s trees, is a treasured guardian of a campus that teaches foreign delegates before the conference even begins. Photo Credit: NCNU.
On the morning of May 4, 2026, two days before the 6th Hanseatic League of Universities Annual Conference and WURI 2026 Global Rankings Ceremony was to open, the Taiwan blue magpie appeared outside my window at the NCNU Campus Inn. It was blue-gray with white and black markings, its beak and feet a striking red tipped with yellow. It stood there, unbothered by my presence, as if to say: You are welcome, Genevieve, and all the delegates. You are valued here. It knew it belonged. I was the curious visitor who still needed orienting.
I took this as a sign. I have attended many conferences in several countries. I have never been greeted by a national bird before breakfast.
Cosmic Interbeing. Left: the Collared Scops Owl 領角鴞, a nocturnal bird endemic to Taiwan. Finding one in daylight is remarkable. Dr. Yung-Ping (Emilio) Tseng noted it was breeding season, which explains its rare daytime appearance. Right: the Scarlet Minivet 赤紅山椒鳥, brilliant in orange-red with black-gray neck and wings.
This is the quality of welcome that National Chi Nan University offers. It is a welcome that precedes a registration desk and a lanyard. The Puli land itself makes every delegate feel it. The campus in Puli, Nantou County, situated in the geographical center of Taiwan and embraced on all sides by mountains, is one of those rare institutional environments that does something extraordinary: it teaches you before you enter the conference halls.
Coming earlier, days before the conference opened, allowed the WURI historian to learn far more than what the conference halls alone could offer. As an applied cosmic anthropologist, I found myself drawn into the cosmic abundance that NCNU’s landscape artists and gardeners have so lovingly cultivated. For delegates who arrived only for the conference itself, here is what you may have missed: the beauty of the Cassia javanica trees, the Pink Shower Trees that many guests mistake for Sakura. What follows is what I gathered from Vice President Dr. Yung-Ping (Emilio) Tseng and from my own walks and morning jogs around the campus.
Exquisite beauty abounds at NCNU. The Cassia javanica, or Pink Shower Trees, draw photography enthusiasts and students alike to linger beneath their cascading blossoms. The tree does not merely decorate the campus. It gathers us, Homo sapiens.
Its grand tree-lined avenues stretch toward vanishing points framed by peaks and clouds. It’s Cassia javanica trees, the Pink Shower Trees, that visitors consistently mistake for Sakura, draping NCNU’s landscapes in cascades of soft pink blossoms. Its bronze sculptures and carved 景石 scholar’s rocks mark the paths with meaning. Its insects hold concerts after midnight that made me feel, more than once, not like a conference delegate in a hotel room but like a scholar camping at the edge of the wild. And its student hosts attended to every delegate’s needs with the kind of hospitality that feels not like a job function but like genuine pleasure in having guests.
The perks of early arrival. Left: the author stands before the NCNU library, a commanding edifice framed by a striking reflective sculpture. Right: she turns around. The same spot. The same moment. A cathedral of trees lines the path to the horizon. At NCNU, beauty does not need to be sought. It surrounds you from every direction.
When I wrote about the 5th HLU Annual Conference in Dumaguete and Siquijor last year, I described the Philippine institutions that hosted that gathering as setting a standard for cultural warmth and intellectual generosity in the HLU network. NCNU has also met that standard. It has added a mountain range, a forest, a chorus of birds, and a campus so abundant in living beauty that I wrote an entire companion article trying to do it justice and still feel I have not said enough.
But the conference was about to begin. And the mountains, generous as they are, were not the only thing waiting.
From left: NCNU President Dr. Dong-sing Wuu (武東星), the 8th president of National Chi Nan University; Dr. Antonio B. Ramos, President of De La Salle Medical and Health Sciences Institute (DLSMHSI); Dr. Naomi M. de Aro, DLSMHSI Vice Chancellor for Academics; Dr. Cheyen E. Molon, DLSMHSI Director of Academic Partnerships and External Relations; and Plenary Speaker Dr. In Seok Kang of aSSIST University, Seoul. All five pose before the official backdrop of the 6th HLU Annual Conference and WURI 2026 Global Rankings Ceremony, held May 6 to 8, 2026, at National Chi Nan University, Puli, Taiwan.
If you missed the first article on the 6th HLU Conference, it is available on Pressenza: https://www.pressenza.com/2026/05/the-6th-hlu-conference-and-wuri-2026-global-rankings-ceremony-at-national-chi-nan-university/. Stay with us. The Opening Ceremony, the Presentations, the Campus Tours, the WURI 2026 Global Rankings Ceremony, and the Cultural Tours outside NCNU are still to come.
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About the Author:
Dr. Genevieve Balance Kupang is Dean of the Graduate School and International Relations Officer of Baguio Central University, Baguio City, Philippines. She also serves as WURI Historian, Secretary of the World University Network for Innovation Leaders (WUNI-L), and Board Director of the Cordillera Association of International Relations Officers (CAIRO).
A peace educator, applied cosmic anthropologist, and humanist activist, she is a co-author of a finalist book at the 43rd National Book Awards administered by the National Book Development Board of the Philippines, and a contributing writer for Pressenza International Press Agency.
