Three former National Taiwan University (NTU) presidents yesterday criticized the government for not approving the appointment of NTU president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) and undermining university autonomy.
It has been almost 50 days since the ministry received documents about Kuan’s election and the delayed appointment has caused great anxiety among faculty, students and alumni alike, former university president Sun Chen (孫震) said at a Lunar New Year event hosted by the university.
Kuan was originally scheduled to take office on Feb. 1, but the Ministry of Education put his appointment on hold due to allegations of plagiarism and a conflict of interest that cast doubt over his eligibility.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Sun blamed President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) — an NTU alumnus — for Kuan’s delayed appointment and said that every major policy her administration has promoted “has been damaging to the nation.”
“Is her next step aimed at causing damage to her own school? Or Taiwan’s academia, including all 21 members on the NTU presidential selection committee?” Sun asked.
The Tsai administration has already lost credibility because of its poor policies and it is now risking losing more trust and respect from the public by not approving Kuan’s appointment, he said.
Former university president Chen Wei-jao (陳維昭), who doubles as convener of the school’s presidential selection committee, said the ministry was disregarding regulations and disrespecting university autonomy.
“This is the darkest time for university democracy and academic freedom,” he said. “We must work together to safeguard academic freedom and eventually the school shall triumph.”
The university should preserve documents related to the election to preserve this moment in its history, he added.
Former university president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔) called on Tsai to stop the education ministry from interfering with university autonomy and abusing its power.
“The ministry has tortured NTU for more than a month,” he said, adding that university autonomy was “on the verge on dying.”
Former university president Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池), who stepped down in June last year after he became embroiled in an academic fraud scandal, did not explicitly comment on the election, but said that he hoped the university could soon “leave all its troubles behind.”
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS