Aletheia University reportedly prevented retired professor Chang Liang-tse (張良澤) from accessing the Taiwanese Literature Archive at its Tainan campus by changing the lock on the building.
From the perspective of an outsider, the university failed to properly communicate with Chang, and its statements disrespected the retired professor, who was named honorary director of the archive.
However, the issue should also be viewed from the perspective of the school, which has faced a number of operational challenges.
Two decades ago, private universities prospered.
In 1997, Aletheia University established the country’s first Taiwanese literature department and the Taiwanese Literature Archive in what has become New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水). The archive was established 10 years before the government set up the National Museum of Taiwan Literature in Tainan in 2007.
Aletheia University expanded its campus to Tainan’s Madou District (麻豆), and in 2001 relocated the archive there, before establishing its Taiwanese language department there the following year. Three years later, it also moved the Taiwanese literature department to Tainan.
As the archive and the two departments were all in Tainan at that time, it was convenient for students to access data and do research there.
The effects of the nation’s low birthrate hit private universities in higher education the most, and Aletheia University was no exception. Its Taiwanese language department stopped recruiting students in 2007 and its Taiwanese literature department returned to Tamsui in the hope of attracting more students.
However, the literature department in Tamsui was greatly inconvenienced by the literature archive remaining in Tainan.
As a result, Aletheia University is planning to move the archive back to the northern campus. Apart from facilitating student access to the collections, the university might be preparing a slow evacuation from its southern campus.
In the past few years, the school paid little attention to the archive’s management, whereas Chang occasionally visited to organize materials donated by him or entrusted to the archive by his friends.
Knowing the hardships of running a private university, Chang must be saddened by the slow merging of the southern campus with the Taiwanese language department, after having devoted a lifetime to the preservation of the materials.
The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture should help facilitate communication between the two parties so that the matter can be appropriately handled.
Personal belongings that Chang temporarily stored at the archive should be returned to him.
However, the materials he donated have become school property, so perhaps he could decide to part with those items for the benefit of more users.
This incident highlights that when items are donated to an organization, the donor and the organization should sign a contract that specifies their rights and obligations, such as whether the organization has full control of the items, and whether the donor can freely access them or borrow them for exhibitions, among other issues.
Although Chang was named the archive’s honorary director for having donated materials, times change and university presidents change. Without a contract in place, the locks on other doors might be changed as well.
Wang Hsi-chang is a writer.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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