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 On March 9, 1872, the Rev. Dr. George Leslie Mackay stepped onto the land at Tamsui. He was a missionary from the Canada Presbyterian Church (predecessor of The Presbyterian Church in Canada), and accomplished remarkable work in evangelism, education and medicine. Choosing a piece of land at the top of a small hill in the Pao-tai-pu area of Tamsui (the present location of the school), Mackay drew the plans for the school, and supervised the construction himself. On the completion of the school building in 1882, he called the school, Oxford College, in gratitude to the residents of his home area, Oxford County in the Canadian province of Ontario, who donated financial help. The original Chinese name meant ¡§The Hall of Reason of the University,¡¨ which was popularly known in the Chinese version of Oxford College. Besides Theology, Bible and Reason, the courses given at that time included the History of Sociology, Logic, Chinese Classics, Chinese History, the Natural Sciences (Astronomy, Geography, Geology, Botany, Biology, Mineralogy), as well as basic concepts of Medicine, Anatomy, and clinical practice. Oxford College is the forerunner of general education courses in Taiwan; it made educational history as the first western style educational institution, and the longest-lived school at the present time.
The founding group of Aletheia University, the Northern Synod of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, desired to succeed to the merit and contributions that Dr. Mackay made to Taiwanese culture, education and medicine, determined in 1959 to plan for the establishment of a university on the original location of Oxford College. In August 1965, the Ministry of Education approved the establishment of Tamsui Institute of Industrial & Business Administration, and the school was able to accept students for three-year and five-year college systems. Six years later, in April 1971, the English name was changed to Tamsui Oxford College.
The aspiration of the college was to develop into a comprehensive university. In June 1991, an addition was made to the property area by purchasing 18.8 hectares in Matou, in Tainan County to set up a branch school. Together with the original property in Tamsui of 9.3 hectares, Tamsui Oxford College now held a little more than 28 hectares.
Permission was received on August 1, 1994, to change the school into a  four-year independent college. This college was called Tamsui Oxford University College. In November, 1996, the Matou branch was opened and developed with a two-year technical school education system as the central emphasis. The school first accepted students for the spring semester in February 1997.
On August 1, 1999, the Ministry of Education approved the new name, Aletheia University, using the Greek word for Truth. The university at present is composed of the eight Colleges of Humanities, Mathematics, Finance, Management, Tourism, Languages, Knowledge Economics, and Sports Knowledge; and includes four graduate programs in Humanity Studies, Mathematical Science, Management Science, and Finance & Economics, with a total of 33 academic and six technical majors. |
