張佛泉, also named "葆桓” is an important theorist of Chinese Liberalism. He was born in 1908 in Baodi County of Hebei Province, China. Upon graduating from high school, he entered the private Yanching University without the need of entrance exams; and in 1930, he entered John Hopkins University in US. In 1934, Hu Shih invited him to take on the teaching position in Peking University as a political science professor. He was also one of the editors of "Independent Reviews” founded by Hu Shih. From 1949-1954, he took on the editor role in NICT in Taiwan. In 1954-1956, he was the director and professor of political science department at SCU to teach the history of western political thinking. In 1954, he published "Freedom and Human rights” to set a milestone for consolidating the liberalism in Taiwan. In 1956-1961, he took on the political science department director and dean of college of liberal arts in THU. In 1961-1963, with the assistance from Ford Foundation in US, he moved with his family to Harvard University in US to be a researcher. From 1965-1977, he was teaching at the University of British Columbia until retirement.
張佛泉consolidated the foundation of liberalism in Taiwan in the post-war era. Through the effect of freedom of all Chinese gentlemen’s remarks, he made significant contributions to liberalism in Taiwan. Our center has been named after him to remember and thank his ideas and achievements to continue the human rights work through this research center.
This center was founded in 2001; it’s the first professional human rights research and education center. Its purpose is to promote cross-field research on human rights topics, push forward human rights education, provide training for human rights workers and initiate international academic exchange.
（1）Promote domestic human rights research
The important task of this center is to integrate law, politics, humanities and other subjects by combining domestic and international academic elites to provide a space for human rights theory discussion in the hope of improving the human rights research in Taiwan and become an actual help to the human rights culture.
（2）Push Forward the human rights education:
In the past decades of Authoritarian regime, human rights are not protected and even the education of human rights is prohibited. Not only does the education system and content very rigid, human rights based knowledge information and education also was insufficient. Our center aim to raise the human rights awareness of Taiwanese people to push forward human rights education. Before the founding of the center, we had been collaborating with Taipei Municipal Teachers College to plan for the training of human rights lecturers and drafting of the curriculum materials. At the same time, we aim to assist all counties and municipalities to plan for their human rights education and course and recruit professional lecturers. In 2004, the human rights bachelor degree was established in 2004. There have been more than 60 students recruited. Also, our center is also a pioneer member of the "international human rights education consortium "responsible for Asian alliance affairs (aside from south Asia)
（3）Improve the quality of domestic human rights workers:
NGOs have played an important role to internationalize human rights. Since we were isolated by the authoritarian regime and isolation from the international countries, Taiwanese government has been long absent in the international human rights activities. This results in being sidetracked for a long time for international human rights activities and also, human rights education and awareness has also be long limited. Our center bases our thinking on human rights academic professionalism to actively promote human rights worker training and improve the professional knowledge and view in order for NGOs in Taiwan to be connected with international human rights activities and set the strong human rights foundation.
（4）Improve international human rights academic exchange:
In the past 50 years, the results of human rights research have been spectacular; not only has the western human rights research been very diverse, united nation human rights institutes and activities information and knowledge have been blossoming as well. The research centers and activities organizations that are built internationally on the basis of human rights protection have been numerous. In order to make all sectors of Taiwan to be more familiar with international human rights research development, our center also vigorously invites institutes from all around the world to exchange information with us. On one hand, we can familiarize with the development of international human rights affairs and on the other hand, we can let the internationals to have more understanding of Taiwanese human rights activities.
Links to Departments
This unit is primary research center in collaboration with human rights bachelor and master degree programs; together, we can promote human rights affairs to take the human rights education in Taiwan to the next level in which we aim for Taiwan to be the major hub for Asian human rights education and research.
Human rights Bachelor and Master Degree programs at SCU http://www.hrp.scu.edu.tw/index.jsp