The Ministry of Education will not issue a formal letter of employment to the candidate in line to head National Chunghsing University before Sept. 30, the deadline for the university's authorities to submit an investigative report into plagiarism charges levelled at the candidate, a lawmaker said yesterday.
"It is certain that the Ministry of Education will put off issuing the official letter of appointment to Peng Tso-kwei (
"At the moment [the ministry] is under mounting pressure both from professors of the school and a protest letter from the publishing house in the US. Ministry officials must proceed with caution if they are to prevent any further clamor."
The uproar surrounding the presidential candidate for the university continues to simmer while the case is in the hands of school authorities, who are investigating two academic works written by Peng which have been brought into question.
Peng is an agricultural economics professor who had been expected become the school's next president.
Peng is alleged to have passed off the work of American scholars as his own on at least two occasions.
In accordance with ministry regulations, the school must first address allegations of plagiarism involving its staff before the ministry may step in.
Questioned by the Taipei Times about the current status of the investigation, school authorities declined to give a clear answer.
Wu Ming-ming (
"They will simply request the accused to answer questions orally, before sending a report to the ministry for a decision," Wu said.
The controversy centers on Peng's academic integrity and his alleged violation of copyright law. School professors argue that a plagiarist and law-breaker is ill suited to serve as president of the university.
Cornell University Press, the publisher of the 1985 book Agricultural Product Prices, one of the works in question, issued a strongly-worded protest letter on Sept. 13 against Peng's actions and accused him of borrowing liberally from the book written by two Cornell professors, William Tomek and Kenneth Robinson.
Bruce Gardner, a professor at the University of Maryland, also wrote to convey his discontent with Peng.
Four of the models appearing in Peng's journal The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Agricultural Productions and Farmers' Share in Taiwan, which won an award from the National Science Council in 1990, are alleged to have been copied from Gardner's 1975 book The Farm-Retail Price Spread in a Competitive Food Industry.
Gardner said Peng's use of his model was not the cause of the problem in itself. What triggered his discontent is that "Peng did not cite my article at any point in his paper, nor is my article included in the list of references at the end of his article," he wrote in his letter.
Wang Li-ping told the Taipei Times that as the current president's term ends on Sept. 30, lawmakers have given the education ministry two options. They say that either the term of the present president should be extended until the end of this year to allow more time for the ministry to sort out the dispute, or the ministry should assign an acting president to serve until the controversy is resolved.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS