National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), former Hsinchu mayor Lin Chih-chien’s (林智堅) thesis adviser, would not teach at National Taiwan University (NTU) in the coming academic year, the university said yesterday.
The announcement came hours after local Chinese-language media reported that Chen’s profile had been pulled from the faculty information page of the university’s Graduate Institute of National Development Web site, leading to speculation that he had resigned.
Chen was taken off the faculty list after he requested no teaching responsibilities be given to him this year due to rising tensions with China, which leaves him with little time outside of his duties at the bureau, the university said.
Photo: CNA
He remains a professor at the school and no resignation has been offered or accepted, the university said, citing rules governing public school educators.
Chen has been embroiled in allegations that Lin in 2017 plagiarized his master’s thesis from the thesis of another student, Yu Cheng-huang (余正煌), which was published the previous year. Chen at the time served as adviser for both students.
The two papers were found to have used identical data sets and similar methodology, and contained identical typographical errors in analyzing the 2014 Hsinchu mayoral election, which Lin had won.
Chen defended the former mayor, saying that Lin was the original author and Yu had read a draft of Lin’s study before writing his own paper.
However, the NTU academic ethics committee on Wednesday last week ruled against Lin on grounds that his paper was more than 40 percent similar to Yu’s and that Lin did not provide a draft of his thesis predating Yu’s study.
The committee recommend revoking Lin’s degree and announced the launch of an investigation into Chen for possible failure in his responsibilities as adviser.
Two days later, Lin bowed out of the Taoyuan mayoral race.
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