Professors at National Chungshing University (NCU, 中興大學) questioned yesterday the qualifications of a candidate in line to become the school's next president, saying that a plagiarist was ill-suited for the position.
Professors allege that Peng Tso-kwei (彭作奎), a professor in the university's department of agricultural economics who has been tipped as the school's next president, has passed off work from American scholars as his own.
They say two works on agricultural economics penned by Peng bear remarkable similarities to research by William Tomek, Kenneth Robinson and Bruce Gardner, agricultural professors in the US.
"A person who does not tell the truth about his academic research is not qualified to be our president," said Wu Ming-ming (
Wu, armed with a pile of documents which he says proves his case, said that there was in fact little doubt that Peng had plagiarized the American scholars' works.
"Just looking at the two copies is sufficient enough to prove that Peng can not be a president of the school," Wu said, adding that he disapproved of the Ministry of Education's choice of Peng.
The publications in question are the 1991 book The analysis and theory of agricultural product prices and a 1990 journal piece, "The impacts of trade liberalization on agricultural production and the farmer's share in Taiwan," both of which Peng wrote.
"More than 80 percent of the content of Peng's book is similar to Agricultural product prices," Wu said, referring to the 1985 work by William Tomek and Kenneth Robinson, professors at Cornell University.
Furthermore, Wu said, Peng's book has been reprinted four times and is still available on the market, in contradiction to Peng's claim that the book was printed just once.
Wu said that Peng's journal piece, which first appeared in the Journal of Agricultural Economics in 1990, was identical to a piece called, "The farm-retail price spread in a competitive food industry," written by Bruce Gardner, professor of the agricultural and resource economics department of the University of Maryland.
"What makes Peng more contestable is that he did not even include Gardner's journal on the reference list at the end of his essay," Wu said.
In response to the accusation, Peng told the Taipei Times that he utilized the book by Tomek and Robinson as a reference while he was working on his own book. In addition, he said, three reprints of his book were made without his approval.
Regarding the journal piece, Peng said he did not consider the work to be plagiarism. "How can you accuse someone of being a plagiarist when one writes the formula: 1+1=2 in his book?" he said.
Wu told the Taipei Times that he had sent a copy of Peng's book and journal piece to the three American professors and would leave any legal action up to them.
Peng, former chairman of the Council of Agriculture, is the most likely candidate to take NCU's top post among the three candidates elected by the school's 622 faculty members.
According to University Law, the education ministry is entitled to choose the president among a proposed list of candidates chosen by the school's election committee.
Peng won 161 votes, or the second-highest number of ballots. Chen Ming-tsao (
School faculty have been protesting the education ministry's choice, saying Chen is the best candidate.
"Only we the professors know who the most suitable president should be," Wu said. "How could the MOE not respect our decision?" he asked rhetorically.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January last year have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
RSS