Subject: Regarding a complaint against the Office of Student Affairs at
National Cheng Kung UniversityTo: ChinaTimes
CC: louwei.chen@msa.hinet.net
Dear Editor,
I just sent the email below to Dean Ko Huei-chen of the Office of
Student Affairs at National Cheng Kung University and circulated copies
to the Ministry of Education, the Department of Higher Education, the
Control Yuan, and the president of the university. Dean Ko's office
number is 2757575-50300, if you decide to contact her. Public officials
should be held accountable to the public and a free press is the only
way to insure such accountability. As you can see, other means,
including contact with government offices in Taipei, have not been
successful. Please understand that for nearly five years now (since
March, 1999) I have tried to resolve these issues within the university
and then within the Education Ministry, but this does not seem to be
working as it should. Obviously administrative "remedy" that lasts
five years is not remedy.
Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
Professor Ko Huei-chen
Dean of Student Affairs
Office of Student Affairs
29 January 2004
Dear Dean Ko,
Your handling of the case the student involved in misconduct at our
university is not acceptable.
First, when a professor asks a dean to call a student into the
office, this should be done. It is not the dean's right to
interfere in this process. It is the RIGHT of a professor to ask a dean
to call a student into the office for a talk about school
matters (grades or conduct). You should not deny this right.
Second, you know that this student wrote a secret letter used at my
dismissal hearings. Why should she be protected?
She should be punished instead. This is why we have an Office of
Student Affairs.
Third, you claim a court decision protects her. It does not. The
court decision concerned whether she caused my
dismissal, not whether she wrote the letter.
Fourth, you claim she was not a student when she wrote her letter.
That should not matter, since she is a student now.
But if it does matter, as you claim, then I remind you that she repeated
her accusation while a student now.
Fifth, you claim there is "no new evidence." I don't know what you
mean by this, since the old evidence is enough. Do
we need new evidence when the old evidence has been ignored?
Sixth, your secretary claims the student doesn't want to come.
Since when do students decide policy about their own
misconduct?
Seventh, you claim that doing nothing about her misconduct will
make her better. This is wrong. No moral thinker
would agree with you on this. It is as wrong to refuse to admit a wrong
as it is to refuse to forgive a wrong. I have made it
very clear to you, in front of your secretary, that I was willing to
forgive this student once she admitted she did something
wrong. But you don't want her to admit she did something wrong. This
is even more wrong than what the student did, since
you are older and in a position to set moral standards for young
students.
Eighth, it is insulting that a university administration accepted
this student's SECRET and FALSE accusation against me
and acted on it at once, while the university administration refuses my
PUBLIC FORMAL complaint against this student for
more than two years.
Ninth, not only hasn't this student been punished, but she is now a
graduate student and part-time teacher at our
university. She even worked in the president's office AFTER she wrote
her SECRET letter. Did President Kao KNOW
this student wrote a secret letter?
Tenth, I have an email, dated the year before my dismissal in 1999,
warning me that this student would accuse me for a
promise of employment at our university. I showed you a copy of this
email, to no effect.
These are important issues that should concern a dean at a national
university. Excuses such as I quoted above are not
acceptable. I expect this student to be called into your office.
Sincerely,
Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
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