Chang Kuei-ling

As coach of the university dance team this year, I held training twice a week, three hours at a time, with intensive rehearsals over the winter and summer breaks. This tested not only the students' fitness and will, but how each of them brought their own ability and character into the work — and, over the course of rehearsal, quietly shaped their sense of how a piece should be performed. Dance training demands precision of movement, and the details of that process build discipline, responsibility, and the unspoken understanding that holds a team together. At the National Student Dance Competition the team won distinction in the university modern dance division for the second consecutive year, placing in the top two this year: the fruit of the students' effort, and the best recognition of what the team has given.

The team also performed at the closing ceremony of this year's National Intercollegiate Athletic Games. From rehearsal planning and formation changes to the fine points of the performance and its execution on the day, every element had to be checked and adjusted again and again. Being able to show the character of the university and the distinct energy of its students through dance lifts the students' confidence and enriches the exchange between the arts and sporting life on campus.

Looking back over the year — team training, the national competition, the ceremony performance, managing athletes at the Intercollegiate Games — I have come to feel deeply that work in physical education is not only technical and administrative. It is a practice of accompaniment, responsibility and giving back. I hope to keep refining my professional ability, to deepen how physical education is integrated, to give students a fuller environment in which to learn and perform, and to help campus sport grow and create more of lasting value for NCU.