HKUST
Incentives Creating
incentives for faculty to retire on the job (14 July 06+)
Department head selection
(a) Proposal to have department
heads elected by faculty (13 April 07+)
(b)The
practice of department head selection and the meaning of "consultation"
at HKUST (16 July 07)
Senate Fake Senate(13/18
Sept. 06)
Privacy rights Where
are my privacy rights? (14 July 06)
Shifts in faculty structure Where
have all the (foreign) professors gone? (26 June 07)
HKUST governance (or absence thereof) The
HKUST "executive system" (June 09)
Academic review at HKUST/SOSC
Concrete cases (mine) that I can fully document:
Floating salary bar review (14
July 06+)
Promised but not implemented
salary increase in summer 2007 (June 09)
Full professorship review (6
Sept. 08)
Annual review (general) Annual "merit"
review (June/Sept 08)
Social Science Division
The illusion of a "social science" division The
great interdisciplinary fudge (13 Sept. 06+)
Options for the future SOSC options (24
Sept. 06+)
Seminars Are
we really a research university? (13 Sept. 06+)
HKUST = Hong Kong University of Science
& Technology
HSS = School of Humanities and Social
Science
SOSC = Social Science Division
VPAA = Vice-President for Academic
Affairs
UASC = University Appointments and
Substantiation Committee
Names of dept. heads, deans, VPAAs
Creating incentives for faculty to retire on the job (14 July 06, mini-revision Sept. 08)
On 1 Oct. 2002 we had a first salary cut, and on 1 January 2005 the third, for a total of approximately 10%. On all three occasions I was asked to sign a statement to the effect that I am happy to have my salary cut. The division head on at least the first two occasions issued a veiled threat: "If you don't sign..." with my memory saying there was a hint at dismissal if I don't sign.
In spring 05 we were asked to switch to a new salary scale (sign a new contract). Previously, a good researcher (and decent teacher) enjoyed a salary increase every year. The new salary scale allows for a salary increase at most every two years, and the salary increase depends on the availability of funds to the dept. If I were to stay at HKUST until retirement, and if my performance would have been continuously OK under the old system, this means a minimum of twelve salary cuts in comparison to the original contract. Given that funding appears not available for the Social Science division to increase salaries (as far as I know, didn’t happen in summer 05 except for two persons, for very specific reasons), the new salary scale is set to imply two dozen salary cuts in comparison to the original contract.
Even in a best?-case scenario of a salary increase every four years, I can earn more money, on average every year, from now until my retirement nearly 25 years down the road, if I stop doing research and simply teach one course in the self-financing program every year. In terms of research, I reduce my time input by, say, 2000 hours a year. In terms of teaching, I teach one extra course, in the self-financing program, say, plus 100 hours. I have 1900 more free hours and more pay.
The pure economic cost-benefit analysis comes out so unambiguously in favor of a major shift away from research into whatever consulting opportunities are available, that it will be fascinating to see how much of this massive shift in financial incentives will be counterbalanced by innate research instincts—or the desire to be able to leave HKUST.
Department head selectionI propose to the Senate that department heads are elected by faculty
members (as is the norm at North American universities of similar ranking
as HKUST) and I provide evidence that HKUST's current consultation process
in the selection of a new dept head is fake.
(a) Proposal to have department heads elected by faculty (13 April 07, 10 Oct. 07)
13 April 07:
On 26 March 07 I submitted a proposal to have department heads elected by faculty to the Senate. This means I sent it to the President, who has to approve the presentation to the Senate. Following e-mail and phone conversations with the administration, the proposal is now first going to the University Administrative Committee and then possibly to the Senate in June.
Here is the proposal, and here is a write-up in support of the proposal.
10 October 07:
The President informed me orally in June 07 that the University Administrative
Committee decided not to take any action.
(The
UAC comprises the president, the three vice-presidents, the four deans,
the director of finance, a secretary, a non-administrative member of the
Senate [by invitation] and a department
head nominated by the Senate [by invitation].)
According to the President, the VPAA would write up some proposal to
the University Council regarding the institution of "Founding Department
Heads" (that seems to go back to the founding of the university), which
did not seem related to election of dept heads but to ending some practices
of the start-up period of the university. Separately, the search committee
for dept heads would in the future inform dept faculty of the rationale
behind their decision.
A later letter from the President to me, documenting our conversation, makes *no mentioning* of any proposal to the Council or of informing dept faculty of the rationale behind the search committee decisions.
The President's reason for not having dept heads elected by faculty members, in my understanding, is that faculty members (or, the "university") are "not mature enough." (The term "mature" is his.)
AP18.0 on the appointment of department heads says that the search committee “shall perform the following functions” (2.3) which include “(e) to schedule interviews of the finalist candidates, including a seminar open to faculty members and students of the department; the candidate shall meet with the following groups of personnel during the interview: … the Dean, VP-AA, and the President; faculty members of the Department in groups; any faculty members of the Department individually...” The committee then also performs the function “(f) to solicit feedback, preferably in writing, from those with whom the candidate have interacted.”
(The vote then appears to be reason why the appointment did not go
through.)
Here's another example for "consultation" a la HKUST:
The South China Morning Post on 9 Nov. 06 carried
a letter by some faculty and students of SOSC writing that in the HKUST
decision to award Tung Chee-hwa an honorary doctorate in social sciences
"the faculty, staff and students of the university's division of scoial
science were not directly consulted." The HKUST president, Paul Chu, replied
in a letter on 10 November that [a] "The honorary degree committee ...
consists of elected members from each of the four schools, including the
School of Humanities and Social Science" and that [b] during the nomination
and endorsement process "there are ample opportunities for deliberation
and views to be heard and debated." -- (a) The HSS representative was never
elected; at best, an email from the dean may have come around "If I don't
hear from you otherwise, it is assumed that you agree to the appointment
..." but my rather complete email system doesn't even have evidence of
that. (And the annual list of committee members lists school-level committee
appointments but not the school's representative to the honorary degree
committee. I had to find out from an outside news blog on the internet
who our "elected" HSS representative was.) (b) There was no deliberation
of Tung Chee-hwa that was open to faculty members of SOSC. The first time
I heard about the honorary doctorate in the social sciences for Tung Chee-hwa
was after the deal had been done and it had been publicly announced.
Fake Senate (13/18 Sept. 06, editing in June 08)
The HKUST "Senate" is an extension of the VPAA's office and does not represent the faculty (the norm at North American universities).
68% of the Senate members
are appointed directly by the VPAA or by an intermediary appointed by the
VPAA.
6% or 30% of the "Senate"
members are elected by faculty.
Contrast this to, say, Cornell University (where I got my PhD): 100% of the members of the Senate are elected by the faculty, with the exception of the university president who is a member but not elected by faculty. (Factual details below, from http://web.cornell.edu/UniversityFaculty/FacultyHandbook/HandbookParts/1.0final02.pdf, pp. 12-23.)
-- The HKUST "Senate" --
| Membership | Number | Appointed by |
| President + 3 Vice-Presidents |
|
|
| Dean of each School |
|
VPAA |
| Heads of academic departments |
|
VPAA |
| Directors of: Applied Technology Center, Technology Transfer Center, Library, ITSC, Student Affairs |
|
? |
| Science, Engineering, Business & Management Schools each elect 4 members |
|
supposedly elected --- potentially de facto appointed by Dean, who is appointed by VPAA* |
| HSS: School elects one |
|
supposedly elected --- potentially de facto appointed by Dean, who is appointed by VPAA* |
| Full-time academic staff elect |
|
-> real election! |
| President of Students’ Union |
|
-> real election? |
| UG students elect |
|
-> real election? |
| PG students elect |
|
-> real election? |
| Two co-opted full-time acad. staff members |
|
? |
| Total | 53 |
For the current membership see the Academic Calendar 2006-07, pp. 583ff.
* My records, for HSS, suggest that in most years when we "elected" our Senate representative, we indeed had a chance to nominate. (In one case, where a replacement was needed for a remaining term, the dean appointed, and sent an e-mail asking for comments.) In the most recent election of 2004, we had one nomination (by the dean?), and then no voting ("If there is more than one faculty nominee for a position, an election will be held."). I have the impression that the vast majority of faculty simply don't care, so that the election process isn't much of an election.
Cornell Senate
[http://web.cornell.edu/UniversityFaculty/FacultyHandbook/HandbookParts/1.0final02.pdf, pp. 12-23]
Apart from the university president, it comprises:
[i] various (specified) officials of the University Faculty, where the University Faculty basically consists of all faculty, one-faculty-one-vote, with the University Faculty officials elected by the University Faculty;
[ii] nine members of the University Faculty, elected by the University Faculty;
[iii] Constituency members elected by the various schools and academic departments. -- While “election” is not defined at this location (p. 18), the election procedures outlined on p. 16 for the Dean (head) of the University Faculty is unambiguous about this being a real election. The concept of a fake election may not exist at all in the Cornell context. The re-definition of the term “election” in HSS at HKUST (and HKUST in total?) as "appointment made by some executive," him/herself appointed by some higher-level "executive" appears unique to HKUST (and certain regimes ruling various countries).
Where are my privacy rights? (14 July 06 (with a mini-revision 7 Sept. 08))
My employer in all likelihood has full knowledge of (and administers) my medical records.
The HSBC health insurance recently wanted more details on a referral letter by a doctor in the HKUST clinic from me. The request, with all original documentation attached, reached me via campus mail in the typical recycled envelope that we use in campus mail. This suggests to me that it came from the personnel office, and that HSBC freely shares all my medical information with the personnel office. I now assume that whatever I put in the health claim collection box on the 5th floor outside the personnel office, is opened, read, and filed by the personnel office.
If it is indeed the case that the HKUST personnel office has free access to my medical information at HSBC, as I am near-certain it does, then this violates my most basic understanding of privacy. --- Princeton University has an established, explicit policy that the university does not have access to faculty members' medical information.
If the personnel office doesn’t like my medical record, it could pass the information on to the VPAA/dean/division head, who could then fire me at four months’ notice. According to my reading of my contract, he doesn’t even have to give an explanation as to why he is firing me. (I have heard one vague rumor that firing in connection with illness has indeed occurred at HKUST. I have no evidence.)
While I feel that privacy re medical information is simply a basic freedom, if the VPAA/dean/division head really must have full access to my medical information, then the counterweight, given the incentives this creates for him, is real tenure.
I sent a registered letter to HSBC on 24 May 06 asking for confirmation that they share my medical information with the HKUST personnel office, and as of mid-July have not received a response. (As of 2008, I have received a non-response saying something to the effect that they are complying with the rules.)
I have written to the Consumer Council of Hong Kong inquiring if it’s OK with Hong Kong law for my employer to have full access to my medical records with the health insurance company, and they referred me to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Data. I had already written to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Data independently, and they say that I “may like to ascertain with the insurance company concerned in relation to their compliance with the requirements of the Ordinance” (full e-mail here).”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Absolute
number of faculty members
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
|
|
|
(1) Chinese,
Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese names
|
|
|
|
|
of which:
pinyin name
|
|
|
|
|
(2) All
others
|
|
|
|
|
Percentages
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
|
|
|
(1) Chinese,
Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese names
|
|
|
|
|
of which:
pinyin name
|
|
|
|
|
(2) All
others
|
|
|
|
The
HKUST "executive system" (June 09)
For the department head, this means: “Department Heads will continue to assume an executive role.”
The consultation paper speaks of a governance structure which is “accountable with checks and balances” but contains not a single check or balance and no mechanisms of accountability (there is no "check" in any form, there is no balance of power because all power is vested with the executive, and there is no accountability since no action can be taken against any executive).
The consultation paper is discussed at a division meeting and nobody sees any problem with it.
Much of this webpage, especially the entries on academic review, provides
evidence of the HKUST executive system in practice. Examples directly addressing
the executive system are here.
Appeal
I appealed [here] on grounds of the dean violating university rules.
The VPAA replied that the appeal is too late -- not within the [I think] 3-week period specified in the original letter informing me that I am not allowed to pass the floating salary bar. (The original letter used the term "should," not the term "must." There is no elaboration on the term "should," or on what constitutes an exception to the "should.")
Implications
For me
The dean's decision, as of fall 2008, costs me USD 15,000+ per year.
If the dean had approved my floating salary bar review, I would have been guaranteed two annual increases in salary rank. Compared to my current salary rank, that's one more. The second increase in salary rank would have meant USD 11,000+ more home financing allowance from the Hong Kong government. (I am currently paying USD 22,000+ per year out of my salary for rent, on top of the home financing allowance.) The extra one salary rank increase compared to my current salary rank would have cost the university on the order of USD 4,000+.
[July 09] My contract with the university includes an allowance equivalent
to the price of one plane ticket per year to my place origin. In June 09
I suggested to transform this allowance into salary. This would bring my
salary to a level which triggers the additional USD 11,000+ home financing
allowance from the government. The university declined. In other words,
the university freely rewrites my contract four times in a row, every time
to *my detriment* and to the university's advantage, but is unwilling to
revise my contract when it means a big benefit for me, at *no* cost for
the university.
On how HKUST operates
Promised but not implemented salary increase in summer 2007 (June 09)
At a faculty retreat on 8 June 2007 the dean informed me that the VPAA had given instructions to increase the salaries of the economists in the Social Science Division (in contrast to the salaries of the faculty members in the other social science disciplines) and that I would be receiving a salary increase in this review round.
At the conclusion of this review round, less than one month later, I did not receive a salary increase. I was not given any explanation as to why the promised salary increase had not happened. Thus, I do not know if the VPAA changed his mind, or if the VPAA (who signs off on salary increases) singled me out for not receiving a salary increase, or if the dean, who later got upset with me about the vote on the new department head that I organized (and wrote emails that I find not suitable to reproduce here), blocked the salary increase, or ...
One is based on false information, the other two (with one consisting of two sub-points) are inconsistent with the facts and established policies.
In my response (the above file) I show, among other things, that
(1) I am being discriminated against in my research performance in
that a better performance is expected of me than of all full professors
in SOSC and of Francis Lui in the economics department (who sits on the
UASC), and that the UASC contradicts itself as to what the requirements
are (it breaks earlier assertions/ guarantees);
(2) I am being penalized for teaching assignments that are determined
by the department head, i.e., which are not under my authority but under
the authority of the division head (and that my explicit preferences have
always been along the lines advocated by the UASC);
(3) the VPAA penalizes me for not violating university rules on PG
supervision;
(4) the evaluation of my services is built on false information.
My original application is here: CV, research, first update to research, second update to research, teaching, service.
Appeal
The only form of appeal allowed at HKUST is
an appeal on procedural grounds.
The members of the appeal committee are selected and appointed by the
VPAA.
I appealed on two grounds:
(1) some of the information I submitted was suppressed by the administration,
while
(2) false information was admitted.
The appeal is here.
The response I received from the VPAA, dated 4 Aug. 08, reads "The [Senate Standing] Committee [for Academic Review Procedure] concludes by a unanimous vote that there is no procedural ground to uphold your appeal. According to the University's policy and procedure (AP24.0), this decision to deny your appeal is final."
There is nothing further. The committee did not refute any of the procedural faults that I raise.
In June 09 I find a webpage titled "Frequently
Asked Questions on Academic Review Policy and Procedure" that seemingly
invalidates part of my appeal, yet it would seem illegitimate to base a
university decision that is regulated in a formal
regulatory framework on an unannounced, highly imprecise FAQ item outside
the formal regulatory framework, and, furthermore, to do so discriminately
as (other) FAQ items that are to my immediate benefit are not being enforced.
[Details here.]
Meeting
with the VPAA
I asked to meet the VPAA to find out how exactly he would
have liked my performance to be different.
We met on 10 Oct. 08. He promised a written statement after meeting
with the dean.
(The dean, in the review process, wrote: "I believe that he [Carsten
Holz] deserves to be promoted to Full Professor.")
The VPAA's written statement is dated 4 Nov.
2008 and stamped "confidential." It urges me to be "more proactive and
constructive in committee service."
My understanding was that I would receive concrete suggestions on what
the VPAA would like me to do. Instead, the only concrete item in this letter
is that in 2006 I refused to review a psychologist. I refused because I
am unable to evaluate the quality of a psychologist's research publications.
I was in that position before, participated in the review, and decided
then that I will not do a fake review again.
My response to the VPAA's statement is here.
[I may, by mistake, have sent the VPAA a hard copy of the only slightly
different penultimate write-up, then corrected with a soft copy sent to
his secretary.]
It's a criticism of his response and of the whole review process that
ends in pointing out that the division review committee has evaluated my
internal service as "very good." At HKUST "there is a VPAA who states
that he doesn't like my internal service to this same division (and the
school), who doesn't care what the division review committee says in this
respect, who doesn't specify what he wants, and who regards this as so
overwhelmingly important that professional service, teaching, and research
pale in comparison."
--- Separately, a senior colleague asked me
to meet him. When I did, he entered a harangue that is not reproducable
(on such issues as how can I dare to appeal against the reveiw decision),
in a language and tone that is inacceptable.
Subsequent internal "service"
With the results of this "review" for full professorship in hand, I
withdrew from the Senate and from my committee assignment in the division.
The written rationales that I have provided for withdrawing from internal
"service" at the time are here.
Request for the UASC to clarify its evaluation principles
On 19 Sept. 08 I asked the UASC to clarify on three issues:
(i) Are HSS faculty members evaluated along
disciplinary or interdisciplinary lines?
(ii) Are the performance requirements for full professorship time-independent
or are they adjusted depending on, for example, time since PhD?
(iii) Does the UASC expect the applicant to provide some form of citation
index? (Not listed among the university's requirements, but quite likely
part of the actual, partly unknown, non-codified rules.)
The full text is here.
The UASC did not acknowledge receipt of my
email and as of nine months later has not responded.
I.e., critical information on what is expected of the applicant ---
with the possibility of vastly different and contradictory expectations
of the applicant at different stages of the review process, and of different
applicants from the same department --- is not being made public.
The VPAA told me orally on 10 Oct. 08 that
the UASC passed my email on to him. (I asked for the UASC's criteria, not
for the VPAA's.)
The VPAA informed me that requirements for full professorship are time-independent.
They are absolute standards.
--- This does not match what I hear from a member of the UASC in private,
and this does not match what a colleague tells me about other departments ranking
the candidates they submit to the UASC for promotion to full professorship
(the university regulations say nothing about 'ranking,' and according
to AP 9.0 there is no quota for promotions to full professorship [implicit,
and in the interpretation offered in the FAQ "Promotion" item 1]).
--- The VPAA's statement also means that, since, separately, he finds
my research record good enough for full professorship, from now until retirement
I need not do any more research in order to obtain full professorship at
HKUST. (A confidential written statement from the VPAA following our meeting
omits all reference to the requirements for full professorship.)
I was not given answers to the other two questions I raised, neither orally, nor in writing.
(2) I do not know how the research quality of one faculty member is compared to that of another faculty member.
(3) I do not know how teaching is being evaluated, and how it is weighted
compared to research.
When Bian Yanjie was division head, he suggested a 40-40-20 rule, teaching-research-"service."
I do not know if that suggested rule is still intact.
Ad 1-3: We have a "merit review" system that does not tell faculty members what is considered merit by those who decide on merit, and that does not provide faculty members with the information necessary to identify if X is more merit-ful than Y.
(4) I do not know the rules according to which the division head appoints the review committee members (a private choice of the division head?).
(5) I do not know the balance of authority between dean, division head,
and review committee.
(If final decision-making authority rests 100% with
the dean or the division head, then what's the point of having a review
committee?)
Specific points for illustration
(a) Suppose a journal citation index were consulted. How does the top
area studies journal (first rank in area studies list) compare to the 36th-ranked
journal in the economics list? -- They both have the same impact factor.
(b) The core teaching information available in the merit review is
the two student evaluation summary scores and class size with response
rate; these are in good part a function of the department head's decision
as to what each faculty teaches at what level, i.e., theses are partly
endogenous to the department head's decision making and cannot convey any
information about the reviewee per se. (As to how meaningful the response
rate is: a 25% response rate came with a nomination of me by the students
of that class for a university teaching award.)
(c) Relying on two summary questions in student teaching evaluations
--- teaching evaluation forms which I furthermore find fundamentally flawed
--- to draw significant conclusions on a faculty member's teaching quality
is unacceptable to me. I can accept very high values as an indicator that
this professor may be doing something right (which then requires further
inquiry), and very low values as an indicator that this professor may be
doing something wrong (which then also requires further inquiry). Everything
in between I am unwilling to give any importance in any way. HKUST, in
stark contrast to the universities in the U.S. that I am familiar with,
seems to blindly go for the one and only quantitative measure of teaching
it can obtain, in total disregard of its (limited) meaning.
(d) How can teaching across non-identical courses be compared? (At
Cornell Econ, only the teaching evaluations of the half-dozen intermediate
micro courses and, separately, of the half-dozen intermediate macro courses
are tabulated. Everything else is apparently considered irrelevant.)
(e) University service is in large part endogenous to the department
head and the dean. These two officials can systematically appoint or systematically
avoid appointing certain colleagues. Why should this be counted as merit
or de-merit for individual faculty members?
(f) How is a 3-0-3 publication pattern over three years remunerated
compared to a 0-0-6 pattern? If the first one gets one salary increase
in the first and one in the third year, will the second one get a double-increase
in the third year (ruled out by AP 25.0)?
(g) The merit review committee appears dominated by the same people
year after year. That group of people is not representative of the disciplines
presented in the division.
(h) I wonder to what extent the review committee is qualified to evaluate
those that it evaluates. Those being evaluated may well be superior in
research to the evaluators. But the organization of the merit review follows
a complex seniority system that ensures that the first-comers at UST determine
the fate of UST.
Conclusions
I was a member of the review committee in the first "merit" review,
when I didn't know yet how it worked. I concluded that this was not a fair
process. (I phrased some of my objections in writing since the VPAA had
promised to go very carefully over the notes of the first review process,
but never got a response.) In subsequent years I didn't serve on the "merit"
review committee. I also stopped submitting my file for review because
I think this "review" process is unacceptably flawed. This means
I opt out of salary increases, except in spring 07, when I compromised,
in the (mistaken) hope that I would get the one salary increase that saves
me USD 11,000+ on rent through an automatic increase in the government's
home financing allowance that goes with the higher salary rank.
The
great interdisciplinary fudge (13 Sept. 06, 19 Oct. 06, 26 June
07, revised 7 Sept. 08)
There is no social science in the Division of Social Science
I was curious about the PG course overlap in the five social sciences, as taught at a decent university. I chose Stanford U., because I know my way around that website (and our supposed model, Caltech, is ranked just behind Stanford in the recent Newsweek ranking).
In the attached file [here] are the core courses in the Stanford PhD programs in each of the five social sciences. There could be a bit of statistics and linear regression model overlap between Poli Sci and Sociology (and possibly Psychology), but that's it. There is no overlap in any non-stats non-metrics courses among the five disciplines.
How is our "Social Science program" supposed to work when there is near-zero overlap between the five social sciences?
It doesn't. We have a sociology+ PG program: the file contains a comparison to the PG course offerings in SOSC in spring and fall 06. SOSC has virtually nothing besides sociology. A sprinkling of poli sci.
Practical implications
Take the example of SOSC 534, Quantitative Analysis in Social Science. SOSC 534 as taught in spring 2006 spends half the time on an intermediate undergraduate econometrics text on regression analysis, and then spends the other half on categorical data analysis, one among a dozen possible topics, and as it so happens the one that sociologists seem to be fascinated by, but that rarely appears in economics or psychology.
Take the example of SOSC 515, “Economic Growth in China” (1998). To retain the (only) two SOSC students in the course, I had to drop all economics and “teach” it at a non-economics level. All non-SOSC students except one then left the course. I never taught the course again because it neither made sense for the division to have such a course (with two SOSC enrollment, one of whom audited), nor did I find it enjoyable to teach a PG course on applied economics to students who couldn't deal with the appropriate literature.
In fall 2006 we had 5(?) PG students with an undergraduate background in economics. If we teach SOSC 534 as before, should these students get a refund of their fees (because this part of what’s relevant to their PG education in sociology, they already did in their mid-undergraduates)? Are we still offering them a PG education if we teach them what they were taught in their mid-undergraduates? Alternatively, suppose SOSC 534 is taught at a PG level for students with an undergraduate background in economics or psychology. That probably means that the other students will have no clue as to what is happening in the course. Do we want to give them all Fs in this course? (Or, rather, they’ll all drop out early on.) Is it fair to deny these PG students their sociology PG level education?
The division has never resolved this issue. The department head and dean typically don't see an issue and appear fine with a de facto sociology program under the disguise of "social science." The fact that I can't properly teach a course in my field is not an issue for them. The dean (June 08) simply says "we are not an economics department." Apparently he has no problem with the fact that we are de facto a sociology program.
--- Remember Ying-Yi Hong? She complained bitterly about the discrimination against psychology before she left for Illinois. By now (2006), the social science of psychology has ceased to be a factor in the division. Anthropology never was. Econ and poli sci are at the edge. Admitting non-sociology students means cheating the students. Hiring non-sociology faculty means cheating the new faculty (as long as they are not made aware of the fact that the division, at its core, is a sociology department), and it eventually means turnover, unless we run into a non-sociologist who wants to be a sociologist.
The division has never resolved what it means by "interdisciplinary" and going to the dictionary for a definition of "interdisciplinary," SOSC is not interdisciplinary.
Why does the
definition matter? For research, it probably doesn’t. Faculty with a background
in different disciplines can (and do) work together on joint projects,
and faculty may individually work in a discipline other than the one they
got their PhD in. As long as the output passes a peer-review, there is
no problem (except in finding suitable peers).
Interdisciplinary: “involving, or
joining, two or more disciplines, or branches of learning.”
So what’s a “discipline?” The dictionary
only offers “branch of knowledge or learning,” which isn’t good enough
for the purpose here.
Because it's still long, I put it in a separate file [here
+ proposal
for economic development field]. I address:
* SOSC currently means a career dead-end for most
faculty members.
* Sinology-type China studies is a dying field.
* Thoughts on how SOSC can move forward.
* When we developed the division's 2020 strategic
plan in summer 2007, I worked out a concrete proposal for the field of
economic development -- the dean then said it's too early to work on details
(at the same time, he asked another faculty member to work out the details
for the field that the dean would associate with, with the results not
made public). As of June 09, the strategic plan seems to have been shelved.
HKUST is supposed to be a research university. Comparing the workshops/ seminar arrangements in SOSC to those in Stanford Econ (my sabbatical leave 03/04), Cornell Econ dept. (my PhD), or Princeton Econ (07/08), SOSC is not a department of a research university.
The Stanford Econ dept. has approximately 50 faculty with 9 different seminar workshops every week, i.e., 9 seminars every week (http://www-econ.stanford.edu/events/seminars.html). PG students must enroll in a seminar workshop in their field. Attendance at the seminar workshop varies; I have seen everything from 5 to 30. At a Stanford Econ dept. average 4-5 faculty per workshop, this would, for SOSC, translate into 4 or 5 seminar workshops/ seminars, one in each field, per week.
To me, that is important. The invitees are people who do research that some of us are interested in. These are people who we want to meet and talk to, people who review the papers we submit to journals, people we might co-author with, people who do research on similar topics as we do, people who stimulate discussion, people who we might be interested in inviting for a longer period. Without research seminars, we just live in our little cells with nobody to talk to. How often have you *discussed* your research, in some depth, with a colleague in the recent 6 months? My guess is 0 times. My count with division colleagues is 0 times. But I had several such instances with outsiders/ visitors/ seminar speakers.
The Stanford Econ dept. flies in people, in each of the 9 seminar workshops, and from what I have seen probably once every two weeks in each seminar workshop. SOSC flying in one person would exhaust the entire division’s entire one year’s seminar budget. [1] [i.e., note 1, at end of this section] We look like a research university run as a factory floor of machines: the machines have been bought, that’s it, and they better work. --- To overcome the geographic distance of Hong Kong from the loops in which we are supposed to operate and publish (and in which I wish to operate and publish), our seminar budget needs to be even proportionally larger than that of a U.S. university to make up for the higher travel costs. We are looking at an annual seminar budget 50-100 times the current size.
At Stanford, faculty of each workshop meet at the beginning of the semester and decide collectively on who to invite over the next year (and planning usually goes across years). In the SOSC “division,” the division head at the beginning of the semester appoints a three-person committee --- the usual hierarchy/ subordination mechanism. There are considerations of limiting seminars to one event per two weeks (or more), so that enough faculty show up to make us "look good;" there's the idea of inviting "big names." Attendance is not a priority for me and I’m interested in people who do interesting research. The division could make it a requirement for PG students to attend seminars in their field, if the concern were attendance numbers, but the rationale against that was that PG students aren't qualified to follow these seminars... (which tells a lot about our PG "program").
The one “division” seminar that we have obviously suffers from the usual pressure towards sociology or poli sci "general interest" levels. When was the last time we had a psychology speaker or a mainstream economics speaker (working on China, if you like)? How does the “division” justify depriving the economists and psychologists of research seminars?
(1) There seems to be a dichotomy among faculty, often along discipline lines, about seminars as showbiz (because we are a university, we should have seminars, and the bigger the “name” the better) vs. seminars as research seminars (because we want to do good research, we have high-quality seminars, and that happens to also imply that we are a research university). (2) We are winging it very badly, both because the funds for a proper seminar workshop structure are way missing, and because we don’t have enough faculty in any field (except perhaps sociology), and no qualified PG students, to have seminars and attract speakers for much beyond sociology seminars and “general interest” seminars.
The SOSC seminar food budget (strictly separate from the seminar budget) is not even enough to feed all faculty at a restaurant once a year. --- Food cost is simply not an issue at Stanford/Cornell/Princeton.
[1] In 2005/06, about half the division seminars were financed by faculty through their DAGs, or by the division head (outside the seminar budget), or privately by faculty. I interpret this as a sign of a breakdown in the administration of basic academic activities. --- SOSC faculty can see how the 05/06 budget was spent at https://ihome.ust.hk/~sosem (https, use your regular password); for an audit of the 04/05 accounts I have a hard copy in the office.
Department heads, deans and VPAAs change. Here is a list of who held
what position when. I follow the university communications directory except
in a couple of instances (where I think the August communications directory
does not accurately reflect the situation in the fall semester starting
September).
| Division head | Dean | VPAA | |
| Fall 03 | Bian Yanjie | Ting Pang-Hsin | Chan Yuk-Shee |
| Spring 04 | Bian Yanjie | Ting Pang-Hsin | Chan Yuk-Shee |
| Fall 04 | Bian Yanjie | William Tay | Chan Yuk-Shee |
| Spring 05 | Bian Yanjie | William Tay | Chan Yuk-Shee |
| Fall 05 | Bian Yanjie | William Tay | Chan Yuk-Shee |
| Spring 06 | Bian Yanjie | William Tay | Chan Yuk-Shee |
| Fall 06 | Erik Baark | Alvin So | Roland Chin |
| Spring 07 | Erik Baark | Alvin So | Roland Chin |
| Fall 07 | James Kung | Erik Baark | Roland Chin |
| Spring 08 | James Kung | Erik Baark | Roland Chin |