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.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
SECOND SPEECH: All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist the CCP, despite their differences, the president said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday discussed how pro-Taiwan and pro-Republic of China (ROC) groups can agree to maintain solidarity on the issue of protecting Taiwan and resisting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The talk, delivered last night at Taoyuan’s Hakka Youth Association, was the second in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. Citing Taiwanese democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui’s (蔣渭水) slogan that solidarity brings strength, Lai said it was a call for political parties to find consensus amid disagreements on behalf of bettering the nation. All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist
By refusing to agree spending increases to appease US President Donald Trump, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez threatened to derail a summit that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte needs to run smoothly for the sake of the military alliance’s future survival. Ahead of yesterday’s gathering in The Hague, Netherlands, things were going off the rails. European officials have expressed irritation at the spoiler role that Sanchez is playing when their No. 1 task is to line up behind a pledge to raise defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Rutte needed to keep Spain in line while preventing others such as Slovakia