Concerning student misconduct at National Cheng Kung University

Subject:
CONCERNING STUDENT MISCONDUCT AT NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY
Date:
Fri, 26 Sep 2003 09:45:21 +0800
From:
vertigo@ms22.hinet.net
To:
Kao Chiang
CC:
moe , Control Yuan ,
Huei-chen Ko

Kao Chiang
President, National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan

cc: Ministry of Education, Department of Higher Education, Control Yuan,
Professor Huei-chen Ko, Dean of Student
Affairs

26 September 2003

Dear President Kao,

As you know, the case of the student who wrote a secret, malicious
letter against me has not yet been resolved, since the
student has neither been punished nor even publicly admonished about her
action. This is unacceptable. A university must
abide by ethical standards if it is to have academic credibility.
Moreover, this case is more serious than other cases.
First, it resulted in the dismissal of a professor.
Second, the student is now a part-time teacher as she continues her
graduate schooling. The relationship, if any, between
her secret letter (exactly at the time when the College needed "evidence" to
insure my dismissal) and the letter itself should
be investigated if the university is to uphold standards of ethics and
integrity.
Other issues are no less important:
First, when a professor requests a university dean to invite a student
for a supervised meeting, this request should be
honored. There is no reason to deny or delay such a request. There is no
law, so far as I know, preventing a university
dean from inviting a student to a supervised meeting with a professor.
Indeed, one would think this is precisely the reason an
Office of Student Affairs is set up. The fact that a vice-dean in that
office can protest, in apparent "excuse," that, "The
student doesn't want to come," shows serious problems in administrative
remedy at our university. I know of no university in
the world where an official has to request permission of a student to
discipline that student.
Furthermore, the constant appeal to "lawyers" on the part of officials
at our university will continue to undermine the
credibility of our unviersity as a democratic institution. A democratic
institution cannot be run by lawyers; it must be run by
faculty, with officials as their representatives, not as their guardians.
The university policy of govenment by lawyer is
undermining the intent of democratic process at our university while at the
same time keeping the "face" of democratic
process.
Lawyers do not represent laws in democratic societies; lawyers
represent clients; only laws represent laws.
"Interpretation" of laws in a democracy is best left to the judiciary, under
both constitutional right and restriction. If officials
need lawyers to do their jobs, why not fire all the officials and hire the
lawyers as officials instead?
Finally, even if one believed for a moment that the student involved
could not be punished because she was not a student
when she wrote her letter (and I would like to hear what public officials,
including lawmakers, in Taipei have to say about
this), this is no excuse on the part of the university to do nothing about
the student at all. Clearly, it is your responsibility as
president to insure that ethical codes are observed by students, whether
through the Office of Student Affairs or another
channel. But the fact that this student worked part-time as a secretary in
the president's office even after she wrote her
secret letter cannot but cast doubt on the sincerity of officials involved
in this case.
Whatever the facts of this case, I wish to make clear that I am
determined to effect a full resolution of it and to use all
legal channels until such resolution is complete, including an apology from
the student, a formal retraction of an accusation
implicitly accepted by the College of Liberal Arts, and a formal apology
from the university.
Finally, I encourage you, one more time, to advise officials at our
university to cooperate in the just handling of this case
while the controversy is still confined to the university.

Sincerely,


Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
(06) 237 8626