Chou Yi-hsiang (周義祥), a former deputy director of the Ministry of Education’s Department of Accounting, recently graduated with a master’s degree in religious studies at the age of 89, Chung Yuan Christian University said on Tuesday.
Chou’s thesis — a 90,000-word statistical analysis of Christian congregations’ development patterns — was written by hand over two years, the university said.
In 1948, Chou, then 13 years old, fled fighting amid the Chinese Civil War to Taiwan alone, it said.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
Displaying a talent for mathematics, he scored high marks on the university entrance exams and enrolled in National Taiwan University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, which launched a long career in the civil service, Chung Yuan Christian University said.
Chou worked at the then-Taiwan provincial government’s tax, agriculture and food, and social welfare bureaus before becoming deputy director of accounting at the Ministry of Education, it said, adding that he retired in 2001.
He oversaw many national surveys concerning family income, the agriculture and fisheries sector, the industrial, commercial and service sectors, and household registration, it said.
Chou, who is a Christian, saw a recruitment poster for Chung Yuan Christian University’s master of arts program in religious studies while scrolling on his cellphone and enrolled after being assured that fading eyesight and a lack of computer skills would not impede his studies, it said.
Chou rented a unit near the university and was at every class on time, gaining the respect of students and faculty members, it said.
Chou said that both of his daughters greatly supported his return to studies.
Not knowing how to use a word processor, Chou sent photographs of written manuscripts to his younger daughter living in the US to be typed up, while his older daughter paid his tuition fees, he said.
He thanked religious studies associate professor Wang Xue-sheng (王學晟) for advising on the thesis.
Wang said that Chou’s quantitative approach represented a rare multidisciplinary approach to religious studies and blazed trails for future researchers, adding that the elderly student’s dedication to knowledge should be an inspiration to all.
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