National Taiwan University professor Peng Wen-cheng (彭文正) yesterday said he had resigned from his post at the university’s Graduate Institute of Journalism so that the school and the institute would be free from criticism over him also working as a talk show host.
He went back to hosting his political talk show on Next TV yesterday evening, ending a hiatus of more than two months.
Peng sparked widespread controversy for doubling as a TV talk show host, with Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) in June ordering the university to work out protocols to regulate the second jobs of faculty members. However, the university failed to comply with the order.
The controversy picked up steam when it surfaced that the university was considering the approval of a cooperative project between business and academia, allegedly to justify Peng doubling as a TV talk show host, which led to strong condemnation by some professors at the university.
Peng yesterday said on Facebook that he would not allow the university, where he had been a professor for 20 years, to fall victim to “endless assaults,” and that he had therefore chosen to leave.
“Having thought it through, I think this might be a fitting moment for me to do something else for a change” Peng wrote.
Institute director Lillian Wang (王泰俐) yesterday confirmed Peng had tendered his resignation.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
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