This was in the China Post on Sept. 1 (p. 20):

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/int' ... tudent.htm

Briefly, an American doctoral student applied to the political science department of National Zhongzheng University (CCU), writing on his application that he neither spoke nor understood Chinese. They accepted him, and he enrolled. One of his professors refused to switch to English (it was a required class), and according to him, tried to trick him into making a scene that they could expel him for.

By the way, people from the university are trying to keep this from being posted at their English Wikipedia article. If you click here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_C ... University

and it doesn't have a section called "2008 foreign student scandal" (and Chiang Kai-Shek mentioned in the second line of the intro), then please "revert" back to this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =235708229

(Just press "edit this page" at the top, then "enter" at the bottom.)

Let's give them a wiki war!

P.S. Speaking of edit wars, the official English name of the university is

C H U N G
C H E N G

not that pinyinized crap. If this is the work of a robot, then please turn it off. If it's a human, then please tell it to go away.

Here's something I'd like to know: Where did Lee and Liao gain their degrees? If in the States, wouldn't be nice to know how they did in their graduate studies?

And is the China Post hiring, because that lead was

Is this Terry, formerly owner of the restaurant "American Pie"?

The chair of the department, Kun-Jan Liao, got his Ph.D. in 1994 from the U. of Kentucky. Imagine that.

Source: His webpage

The teacher in question, Pei-shan Lee, got her Ph.D. in 1999 from the U. of Pennysylvania.

Source: Faculty webpage (scroll down)

Still looking for their dissertations.

What a mangled horrorshow of a story! Jesus Christ, China Post! Hire a goddamn sub. What a joke.

I feel sorry for that bloke, though. "This is nothing personal" makes it sound as if there's definitely two schools of thought at Cheng Chung as to whether non-Chinese speakers should be admitted to grad programs.
But didn't we already know that Taiwanese universities are a pathetic joke? This is just further evidence, no?

mmm... PhDs from "hillbilly" unis seem to be the favored path to go for the majority of upward moving locals. I've seen some of the course material and boy! how I wished I was Taiwanese. To me these PhDs are worth less than chewed binlang.
Doesn't seem to matter to them whether the uni is considered top notch or not, it's the string of Roman letters behind their Chinese names that matter.

My thought also I say let's send them a mass email of complaints about their actions.

UKY and UPenn are hardly "hillbilly" universities, although I must admit I'm not quite sure what you mean to express by that statement.

However, you are correct: I've known Taiwanese students in America to do anything - anything - to get those 3 letters behind their name. This is not all of them - my girlfriend has a doctoral degree and worked damn hard for it. For many Taiwanese, however, there are no morals and no boundaries in order to get Ph.D.

edit: Perhaps. Dr. Liao Kun-Jung doesn't have much English ability. He needed a translator to translate his Taipei Times article for him:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editori ... 2003406083

Yeah, Taiwan international? Last year I asked for information on the Hotel management at a Xinzhu University it was I believe ... I asked if it was an international course? ... Yes it is ... is it in English? ... No it's not ... Are some courses given in English? No ... So how the hell can it be first of all a Hotel management course and secondly be international?

I can see why they're so mightily pissed off, though. Imagine being told that you have to conduct classes in a foreign language because your boss wants the nice fat tuition fees from overseas. Just imagine if, say, Edinburgh University issued a directive that lecturers were to start providing lectures in Chinese for the benefit of high-paying Chinese grad students?