Subject: CONCERNING STUDENT MISCONDUCT AT NATIONAL CHENG KUNG
UNIVERSITYTo: Kao Chiang
CC: moe
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
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