Initiatives 2006 - 2020
I have taken a number of initiatives over the years. Below are the
non-trivial ones that I could trace as of end-2020. (Typically, the initiatives
were shared with faculty at the time.)
Abbreviations:
HKUST = Hong Kong University of
Science & Technology
SHSS or HSS = School of
Humanities and Social Sciences (my school)
SOSC = Social Science Division
(my division / department)
HUMA = Division of Humanities
I removed people’s names whenever it was relatively easy to do so and if
the name didn’t seem in some way important.
2006 / 7 / 14 (14 July 2006): I start a discussion blog about SOSC and
HKUST and invite colleagues to comment online. I only receive comments
privately and soon morph the blog into the website https://carstenholz.people.ust.hk/HKUST-SOSC.html, which is easier to post on and to maintain. I post
on this website for about a year until I go on no-pay leave in 2007/08. Most of
the more than a dozen articles are still relevant today (2020). This includes
“For job applicants” (here,
although we no longer have a departmental general office), “Fake Senate” (here),
“Where have all the (foreign) professors gone?” (here, and a
lot more striking today), “The great interdisciplinary fudge” (here),
“Where are my privacy rights” (here, about
my medical insurance records being seen/maintained by the HKUST administration,
an issue that as of 2020 appears to have been addressed), and more, some of
which I point out below.
2006
/ 7 / 14 The dean
blocks my salary advancement against unanimous (positive) decisions at the
division and school level following an evaluation of my performance. This has
severe and permanent consequences for me. The dean provides an invalid reason
and later proves to be inconsistent. Here
(“Floating salary bar review 04/05”) The division head, on orders of the
dean, asks me to not request to see my review file, a right granted by Hong
Kong law, and something I promptly do (allowing me to see what happened). This
dean’s tenure as dean ends that summer and soon after he is rewarded with a
financial package and early retirement.
Financially,
the dean’s decision does lasting damage due to missing salary points through
the end of my employment at HKUST. It also has a devastating impact on my home
financing allowance and thereby the then not undertaken house purchase. In
retrospect, the dean’s decision, made in outright violation of university
rules, probably did on the order of USD 2mio damage. (Also see here.)
2006
/ 11 / 2 For faculty members in SOSC, attendance at
HKUST’s annual Congregation is mandatory. When former Hong Kong “chief
executive” Tung Chee-hwa is to receive an honorary doctorate from my School—as
“chief executive” he attempted to introduce Article 23 legislation that limits
freedom of speech, if not academic freedom—I write to the Provost stating that
if my attendance is indeed mandatory, I will not sit still during the
Congregation. If my attendance at this Congregation is not mandatory, then I
will consider attendance at the Congregation to be voluntary from now on. The
Provost declares attendance at
Congregation to be voluntary. Here
(I did not attend this Congregation and have never attended another one;
students staged a major protest at this Congregation.)
2007
/ 3 / 6 I inform the division head that as member of
the division review committee I cannot
in good conscience evaluate a psychology candidate up for substantiation
(supposedly “tenure”). I am removed from the committee. Here
(not widely shared with colleagues at the time)
2007
/ 4 / 13 – 2007 / 10 / 10 During my tenure as
representative of SHSS to the Senate I
propose to the Senate that department heads be elected by faculty. The
proposal is rerouted to an administrative committee and promptly denied. (Here)
2007
/ 6 / 26 As part of the division’s development of a
“2020 strategic plan,” I draft a program
proposal for the field of economic development (China) (final draft here).
(Earlier thoughts of mine on how to develop the division are here.)
The dean responds that it's too early to work on details while at the same time
asking another faculty member to work out the details for the field that the
dean would associate with. A draft “SHSS Strategic Plan to 2020,” dated 6
February 2008, includes as one of four “strategic directions:”
1. China’s
Economic Development. The
Division’s strong research competence in institutional and applied economics
will be further enhanced with a more comprehensive research program focused on
economic development in China. This research program may also support an
initiative to introduce a more focused MA program in the field.
I have no
record of any further developments and neither the “comprehensive research
program focused on economic development in China” nor the “initiative to
introduce a more focused MA program in the field” ever materialized. (As of
late 2020 I haven’t heard of the “SHSS Strategic Plan to 2020” for probably a
decade.)
2007
/ 5 / 31 I
conduct a SOSC faculty vote (by secret voting) on the rumored appointment of X
as division head—i.e., I implement normal professional practice when HKUST
management fails to do—and inform all SOSC faculty by email of the results of
the vote:
we have 20 eligible faculty.
Out of the 20, I may have been unable to reach some of those on leave /
no-pay leave. Two faculty told me explicitly they do not wish to vote. The
four faculty who are/were on the search committee did not vote.
I received 10 votes.
The question was: "Please circle the answer of your choice:
Are you in favor of having [name X omitted] as next division head?
(1) Yes (2) No (3) No answer"
Of the 10 faculty who voted,
1 voted (1) Yes,
8 voted (2) No,
and 1 voted (3) No answer.
A member of the search committee later told me
that the committee did not have any idea that the faculty did not favor hiring
X as division head.
Earlier, when the committee requested faculty
feedback, I submitted a 2-page evaluation of the headship candidates and
explained why candidate X was unacceptable.
So much for the meaning of “consultation” at
HKUST.
X did not join SOSC / did not become division
head. The Provost in a conversation later called me a “troublemaker”—he
specifically referred to I having organized this vote—for introducing normal,
professional practices at HKUST.
2007 / 7 / 13 In an email to the Provost about
the outcome of the 2007 merit review
I argue that the message that arrives is “(i) do nothing but research in order to leave HKUST,
or (ii) look for alternative sources of income support.” An exchange ensues. Nothing changes.
2007
/ 7 / 13 I request that the members of the “Social Science Academic Review Committee” (appointed by
the division head) be subject to confirmation though secret voting by SOSC
faculty, and a similar procedure apply to the corresponding committee at
the school level. Discussion ensues with division head and colleagues via
email. Nothing changes.
University rules require that review committees
must be confirmed by the School Board (the faculty of the School). An email
from the dean’s office on 2007 / 7 / 7 contained the composition of these
committees and ended with “These
academic review committee memberships are now submitted to the School Board for
confirmation. I am grateful if you will let me have your comments (if
any) by 16 July 2007. If I do not hear from you by the said date, it will
be taken that you endorse the memberships in point.” I object and never hear back, nor does my
objection impact on the appointments.
As of 2020, I don’t think membership of any
committee—all committee assignments being done by dean and division
heads—requires any faculty consultation or confirmation.
2007
/ 12 / 8 I am on no-pay leave to teach at Princeton
University and complain to division head and Dean about the consistent lack of information about
division matters: “I receive about
ten emails a day from HKUST, informing me of a Closure of the Mini Soccer
Pitch, Putonghua Proficiency Tests, Enterprise Center Concourse Works, and SOSC
seminars, or asking me for my TA needs in spring. I conclude that for HKUST as
well as for administrative matters in SOSC I am officially a faculty member.
Yet, since end-September I have not received a single email about division
meetings or strategic plan. I need to learn about SOSC job ads from friends in
the U.S. who contact me.”
2008
/ 3 “The
Hong Kong Model of Academia” (here).
Article of 14 pages length, describing the practices at HKUST within the
context of the Hong Kong governance system.
2008
/ 5 / 26 Some university administrator asks for faculty questions to be posed to a new
Council Chairman. Here
are my questions.
2008
summer My
application for full professorship is denied. I am being given three
reasons for the denial. One is based on false information, and the other two
are inconsistent with the facts and established policies. I challenge the decision, unsuccessfully. Here
To
challenge senior colleagues and HKUST management appears unacceptable at HKUST:
Here
are some brief notes describing my experiences of what senior faculty expect of
more junior faculty at HKUST.
2008
/ 9 / 15 Resignation
from my position as representative of SHSS to the Senate (here).
I also resign from the division academic review committee since it has twice
proven irrelevant in HKUST’s review process (here).
2008
/ 9 / 19 I
request clarification from the University Appointments and Substantiation
Committee on three matters crucial to faculty evaluation (here).
I do not receive an answer.
2008
/ 10-11 In response to an email from the dean listing
the dean’s appointments to various committees, accompanied by the sentence “If I do not hear from you by this deadline, it will be
assumed that you confirm the membership now proposed...,” I object to the appointment of a particular individual on 1 October
2008. (For background information, see 2006 / 7 / 14 above.) Lengthy
communication, some involving the school faculty, and eventually the School
Board, ensues (here).
The particular individual is appointed.
2009 /
6 HKUST follows an executive system (some
background here)
and I provide numerous concrete examples of what that means (here).
In 2010-2013, I am on no-pay leave from HKUST:
In
2010-2012 I teach at the University of Southern California.
In 2012-2013 I visit Stanford
University for a mostly self-financed year due to the eventual denial by HKUST
administrators of my sabbatical leave application. The denial of my sabbatical
leave application is covered in the second half of this write-up here.
An email of mine to division head and dean gives some insights into the
personal dependency structures enforced by HKUST management (here).
The division head’s argument for the denial is “Given his repeated series of
no-pay leaves, I could not recommend a sabbatical request now.” I was then
granted a third year of no-pay leave.
Sometime in 2010 HKUST management sets up a course censorship committee (called
something else) for centralized control over what we are teaching. The
committee provides directives on course content and organization. I play along
with their seemingly endless string of demands for the longest time through
dozens of emails and requests to revise my courses in yet another way. There
are lengthy forms to fill and lengthy explanations to give. Eventually I
disengage. The courses that I had spent years to develop disappear. (Here
is a bit more detail)
2013 / 9 / 5 The
dean ignores a School Board decision (which he had initiated) (here). This is the last time I attend a School
Board meeting. Since then, to judge by the minutes, the School Board—which must
meet twice a year—has never again been asked for (or allowed) a decision; it
serves as recipient of ‘work reports.’
2013
/ 11 / 19 As chair of the division merit review
committee I email the Provost about the severe
procedural deficiencies and the farcical nature of the merit review. The
Provost responds with a vacuous message. Here.
The issues I raise are not addressed.
2013
/ 12 / 4 – 2014 / 6 / 17 I lodge a formal grievance against the Economics Department for
blocking economics PhD faculty in the SOSC from teaching courses in their
field, and then a formal grievance against the President of HKUST for abusing
his authority in handling the first grievance. Here
The substance of my grievance is never addressed.
2013 / 12 / 11
The HKUST deans(?) share a model
‘merit review letter’ (here).
I ridicule HKUST management’s mistaking professors as kindergarten children by
offering my (satirical) version of a model merit review letter (here).
2013
/ 12 / 11 I seek
clarification from the Provost’s assistant on a vacuous message received
indirectly from the Provost about the merit review process, and receive a
vacuous response via the division head. Here
2014
/ 1 / 17 I ask
for professional hiring processes at HKUST (here).
The outcome of a reform of the hiring process is to keep it as unprofessional
as it has always been.
2014 / 1 / 20 and
2014 / 5 / 20
A 33-page “follow-up discussion from divisional visit” memorandum by the
division head to Provost SHYY Wei describes faculty concerns and general
divisional priorities and plans; the faculty concerns and the specific issues
of economics faculty are promptly ignored by the Provost. A 21-page report by
an external advisory committee (May 2014) makes a dozen recommendations for
SOSC; the general recommendations and those regarding the economics discipline
are promptly ignored by HKUST management.
2014
/ 2 / 14 and 19 I inquire about the School Board having no rights nor duties (a fake School Board), the
disappearance of the physical
departmental office without faculty consultation or approval (into a school
office, which also houses faculty mail boxes, to which faculty only have access
during office hours), and the secret and
discriminatory compensation of faculty members for teaching in the
self-financing program. Here
(Nothing changes except that faculty are granted access to the school office at
non-office hours.)
2014
/ 2 / 20 Open
letter to the Provost (here), shared with all university faculty. The letter
covers fake tenure, unprofessional leave practices, unprofessional sabbatical
leave practices, absence of academic self-administration, salaries that fall
far short in international comparisons, and underfunded retirement. I do not
receive a response and the issues I raise are not addressed.
2014
/ 4 / 6 The head of the Humanities Division drafts school faculty’s “voluntary”
self-restrictions on sabbatical leave and the Dean calls a meeting of
faculty to agree on rules on how to limit their access to sabbatical leave. Here
is my response, which also covers how HKUST managers illegally (and using
astoundingly illogical argumentation) rejected an earlier sabbatical leave
application of mine. Management’s secret rules for “sabbatical leave”—in
contradiction of the University sabbatical leave rules—are eventually imposed
top-down and at the time not shared with faculty.
2014
/ 2 / 6 – 4 / 24 There is an effort at division and school
level to restructure the postgraduate student program. For the economics
discipline in the division, I produce a proposal
for a postgraduate program in economic development China. It is shared
with all economists in the division and discussed by email and in personal
meetings, leading to a final proposal. Here
The division head commented at the
time “I agree with [one faculty member’s statement] that we probably don't have
the in-house capacity to deliver this on our own at this point. The EVPP
[Executive Vice-President & Provost] seems open to cluster hiring proposals
that span more than one
department/division/school. It's probably worth talking about
this more internally among the economists.”
I never hear of the proposal again
and there is no restructuring involving the economics discipline in the
division.
2014
/ 6 / 18 Suggestions
for improvements of the “merit review” process, identification of
inconsistencies, how a review is done at another university, my own salary
information, and how I am being financially penalized (here).
Supporting files: citations,
personal
benchmarking, salary
history, and CV.
2014
/ 10 / 22 Response
to division head’s “Merit Salary Review 2014” letter (the annual report
card the division head hands to each child). I point out, among others, that
the School’s and the Division’s “priorities” listed in the letter are neither
the outcome of, nor have been endorsed by a School Board decision or division
meeting (i.e., they are the Dean’s and the Division Head’s priorities), and
that making “the development of more collaborative faculty research” a priority
means that HKUST management chooses the type of research to be favored at
HKUST, which also happens to be the type of research conducted by the dean and
those he brought with him. Here
2014
/ 10 / 23 I lodge a grievance against the Provost and the Dean of SHSS about a system design failure in the merit review
that directly impacts on how I am being evaluated (here):
A merit review committee cannot reasonably review the service of a colleague
when service is solely the outcome of division head and dean orders of who is
to do what (all “service” assignments within HKUST are made top-down). Since I
served on every committee I was asked to serve on (and did so perfectly well),
I have fulfilled the requirement for “excellent performance,” which, however,
was not the evaluation that my service received. The President rejects my
grievance (here)
with the claim that it does not fall “within the scope of the Staff Grievance
Procedure.” I disagree. I lodge a grievance with the Council Chair against the
President for violating the Staff Grievance Procedures (here),
and the Council Chair sides with the President (here).
The system failure that I point out is never addressed; it remains a convenient
channel for manager’s cronyism.
I conclude that justice cannot be had within
HKUST since even the Staff Grievance Procedures are easily side-stepped by the
power holders with the simple, evidence-free assertion that my grievance does
not fall under the Staff Grievance Procedures (now done twice). The next step
would be the judicial system outside HKUST. That hurdle is high since the
playing field is so uneven: limited resources at my end, virtually unlimited
public funds (university resources) for the President and the Council Chair.
I would have expected that academics can
recognize blatantly illogical arguments—if person X forces person Y to do (or
not to do) Z, whether or not to do Z is not a choice of person Y—but time and
again HKUST managers and my colleagues on review committees prove impervious to
logic. Strict obedience to commands (in the face of implicit repercussions
otherwise) trumps logic.
2015
/ 10 / 13 Dean
James Lee decides my 2015 salary
adjustment to be below the inflation rate, below wage increases in
professional and business services in Hong Kong, and far below the price
increases in a (for me) representative basket of goods and services. Using
historical data, my salary increases have been far below the increases in the
government’s funding of HKUST. Here Supporting files: historical
salary series (Excel file), annual
activities report, CV.
2015
/ 10 / 13 Response
to division head’s “Merit Salary Review 2015” letter. In response to the
division head’s “we encourage you to submit papers completed during your
sabbatical leave to international journals that are highly ranked,” I argue
that I either already do so (in a particular Chinese economy journal) and
therefore deserve an evaluation of my research as “excellent,” or, should the
division head have top general economics journals in mind, that the division
head is inconsistent because I am not allowed to teach economics undergraduate
courses, it is practically impossible to teach economics graduate courses, and
the salary I am being paid is that of a sociologist rather than that of an
economist (which should be 68-88% higher, as I document). Here,
and salary comparison here I do not receive a response.
2015
/ 10 / 13 Scathing
commentary on how faculty members are being duped in the “merit salary review:”
A lifetime of real salary cuts, zero transparency and accountability on
salary adjustments, extreme salary favoritism of management’s select few, and
vastly inferior treatment of HKUST faculty compared to civil servants (whose
pay rises determine the government’s adjustment of HKUST’s salary budget). Here Supporting files: news item re salary
favoritism (here)
and correspondence with Hong Kong government official explaining the salary
advancement rules for civil servants (here)
2015
/ 11 / 9 The Division Merit and Salary Review
Committee (under my chairmanship) draws up
faculty performance evaluation guidelines. Here
The guidelines are presented at a division meeting on 29 February 2016. The
division meeting decides: “The
faculty recommends that the review committee not spend an enormous amount of
effort trying to make fine distinctions, but that if performance is broadly
considered credible, all faculty receive the recommendation for full GPA
[government pay adjustment].”
The guidelines are a 8-page document
delving into the details of the procedures and the content of a merit review in
SOSC, and laying out unresolved issues. The guidelines describe the total
absence of transparency and accountability in the review process as well as
what is needed to turn the review process into a fair process. Parts of the
guidelines reflect the difficulty of agreeing among committee members on a set
of content guidelines in a division that incorporates multiple disciplines and
is managed exclusively top-down (by management).
The guidelines include, among
others: The “guidelines should not apply to any annual
adjustment to faculty salaries equal to or less than the annual percentage
change in the salary of civil servants. These guidelines should only apply to
an annual adjustment to faculty salaries exceeding the annual percentage
change in the salary of civil servants.” (The practice at HKUST being that faculty members receive half the
annual adjustment automatically, with the remainder distributed by the dean [or
possibly used for other purposes by the administration]. Civil servants, apart
from the (full) annual automatic adjustment, additionally enjoy
performance-based, seniority-based, and promotion-based salary increases.)
The division head did not put the
guidelines to the division meeting for adoption and the guidelines are never
heard of again after the spring semester 2016. None of the issues raised in the
guidelines is addressed.
When drafting our guidelines, we
were presented by management with an exemplary set of guidelines drafted by
another department at HKUST (here),
which strangely resemble mainland China’s Communist cadre evaluation system.
2015
/ 12 / 7 I ask
Dean James Lee for a raise with the
argument that (1) my real salary today is less than what I earned as Assistant
Professor at HKUST 13 years earlier, and once my home financing allowance ends
it will be less than what it was when I started at HKUST as fresh PhD in 1995;
(2) my HKUST retirement funds upon retirement won’t even buy one-third of the
700 square feet apartment I am renting; (3) HKUST management explicitly
evaluates me as economist but does not pay me as economist; (4) a direct
faculty performance and salary comparison with his repeat co-author (who he
hired) suggests I am significantly underpaid; (5) three further faculty
comparisons suggest that I am significantly underpaid. Here
(the request is shared with School faculty on 30 October 2016). I do not
receive a response.
2016
/ 2 / 28 Scathing
attack on HKUST’s fake “merit review,” including a history of salary cuts
and the farcical nature of guidelines, the forms to fill, and of the “merit
review” itself. Here
2016
/ 6 / 4 What
HKUST management does when a rule-based merit review outcome isn’t to their
liking: The Division Merit and Salary Review Committee (under my
chairmanship) conducts its annual evaluation of faculty performance in
accordance with the division faculty’s earlier decision (2015/11/9). Dean James
Lee doesn’t like the evaluation and asks for a new evaluation. I refuse to
disobey the division faculty’s decision and I refuse to ignore the university’s
review procedures. The division head brings about a new division decision in non-secret voting and when I refuse to
reconvene the division review committee—university procedures do not foresee a
second review, nor do they authorize anyone to request, let alone require a
second review—installs a new committee. The new committee produces the outcome
desired by the dean. Here
is the complete documentation in chronological order. The new division decision is never
implemented—the faculty has been tricked—and only serves to rationalize
this one instance of a second division merit review with an outcome to the
dean’s liking.
2016
/ 10 / 30 Dean James Lee’s decision on my 2016 salary adjustment completely
ignores the decision of the division meeting of 9 November 2015 as well as the
new decision by SOSC faculty of 4 June 2016 (as do all subsequent salary
adjustments). The dean gives me a 0.9% real salary cut and signals “the better
you perform, the more we cut your real salary.” My documentation and darkly
satirical commentary is here. Supporting files: historical
salary series, my
request to the dean for a raise, annual
activities report, CV,
division
merit review guidelines (as above).
2017
/ 4 / 19 I
apply for the (SHSS) deanship. Here.
A person from the headhunting agency talks to me and that’s the end of it. I am
not interviewed by the search committee, let alone given the chance to present
to the school faculty what I have to offer. Supporting file: CV
2018
/ 1 / 26 Dean James Lee decides to in my 2017 salary adjustment revise my real salary down by 0.4%. Here
is my salary documentation and scathing commentary on the systematic
destruction of academia by Dean James Lee and Provost SHYY Wei (with my
commentary going beyond the endless real salary cuts).
2018
/ 2 / 12 I wonder why HKUST completely ignores the
elaborate research review (with outside consultants!) it conducts for the government’s mandatory Research
Assessment Exercise when it comes to assessing faculty performance
internally. (I don’t receive an answer.) In my experience, performing well in the Research Assessment Exercise leads to a salary cut, so I wonder if I conversely
will get a salary increase if I fare poorly in the Research Assessment
Exercise (and more, including how HKUST benefits in multiple dimensions from I
self-financing a research year and managers then cut my salary in return). Here I do not
receive a response.
2018
/ 3 / 14 The
HKUST Business School systematically blocks students from taking my course,
which has implications for me (with specific enrollment numbers in my courses
having certain implications), implications for the division and school (given
Provost SHYY Wei’s farcical budget inventions that include student numbers,
which he authorizes the Business School to take away from us), and proves the
Economics Department and President Tony Chan liars. Here
is the documentation and my scathing commentary. The supposed agreement between
the Economics Department and SOSC—which President Tony Chan earlier claimed
resolved my grievance (2013 / 12 / 4 – 2014 / 6 / 17 above)—includes co-listing
of courses. The moment I, rather than another faculty member who has a joint
appointment in the Economics Department and SOSC, teach the course SOSC 4260,
the co-listing is removed (here). The issue is never addressed.
2018
/ 3(?) A
colleague demonstrates HKUST management’s “budget” argument to be absurd.
The colleague assigns responsibility for the newly announced (fabricated)
budget deficit to those who handled the (confidential) budget (never shared
with faculty), and shows the logical inconsistency of what HKUST management
requests of faculty to supposedly address the (fabricated) budget deficit. I am
not authorized to share my colleague’s write-up, one of many write-ups by a
number of colleagues on a number of issues over time. (As usual, speaking up
has no effect other than to invite repercussions.)
2018
/ 9 / 3 Fake
School Board meetings and fake budget deficit. I invite colleagues not to
go to the fake School Board meeting—an institution endowed with zero rights and
duties, where the dean freely ignores School Board decisions—and provide a
scathing commentary on HKUST management’s budget deficit lie: it’s an arbitrarily
fabricated number; the salary budget cannot
(given the government’s budget practices) be in deficit; HKUST management’s new
requirements (justified by the fabricated “budget deficit”) penalize faculty
members for decisions outside their control (made by HKUST management); HKUST
management shirks responsibility for its decisions by arbitrarily (and falsely)
assigning authorship to institutions that didn’t make these decisions; and the
“budget deficit” argument is illogical (HKUST management does not seem to
understand how financial accounting works). I conclude that the “budget
deficit” is “a simple way for Shyy Wei to terrorize faculty” and I “question
the mental sanity and the qualification to work in academia of Provost Shyy Wei
and Dean James Lee.” Here I do not receive a response. (On the
irrelevance of School Board decisions see here.)
2018
/ 9 / 3 Questioning
the delineated uses of the faculty development fund: A factual exchange
with the division head (and, in the first instance, division faculty) about
research funding. Here.
Noteworthy: (1) Within HKUST, faculty development funds are allocated to
faculty members not based on some underlying (say, research) argument but
arbitrarily, following practices established (probably arbitrarily) a long time
ago (nobody remembers any rationale). This can have funny consequences: In
2019/20 and 2020/21, faculty members continue to be allocated a HKD 7,500 “Research Travel/Duty Trip Fund” (usable only for
travel, though not enough for an overseas conference trip to begin with) while
the university has an absolute ban on travel in place. I.e., HKUST
administrators allocate funds to me and at the same time force me to forfeit
them. (2) HKUST management is all about making money through research grants,
even if that hurts research; i.e., research performance becomes irrelevant
given the overwhelming pressure to make money for HKUST managers. Nothing
changes.
2018
/ 9 / 10 Provost
SHYY Wei’s salary budget: Yet more scathing commentary on how the Provost’s
salary budget farce fails basic logic. Here
(I do not receive a response.) The fact that colleagues at a university are willing to accept and work with obvious
fabrications gives inklings of how totalitarian regimes succeed.
2018
/ 10 / 11 Dean
Kellee Tsai decides to in my 2018 salary
adjustment raise my real salary by 0.65%, an adjustment still below the
salary increases of civil servants and private sector employees in Hong Kong
(with at least civil servants additionally enjoying annual salary rank
advancements, seniority pay advancements, and possibly a promotion). I compare
my real salary over time (no better off than 23 year ago when I started at
HKUST as Assistant Professor) and show the discrimination I am experiencing in
a cross-faculty comparison. I attach a document showing HKUST management’s rank
discrimination against me. I share credible information (for which I don’t have
100% evidence): “Our school, unlike the other three schools, some years ago
decided that the SHSS will not switch to the provost’s ‘cap and top-up’
procedure — salaries are capped but the school can then freely top up — because
a couple of people in SHSS have such high salaries that they would be hurt by a
cap.” (It looks like those couple people happen to be “the school.”)” I was
never informed, let alone part of such a decision. Here Supporting documents: my
salary development (xlsx), faculty
performance comparison
2018
/ 12 / 3 “The >Gleichschaltung< of the Hong
Kong University of Science & Technology” (here).
Article of 22 pages length. Abstract: “Gleichschaltung” is a term used in 1930s
Germany to denote the process of establishing totalitarian control over all
aspects of society. The term has since been used in other contexts and is
applied here to the case of a university in Hong Kong, where the presence of
the Chinese “Communist” “Party” and its effect on academia are increasingly
felt. The paper clarifies the meaning of “Gleichschaltung” and its relevance to
academia, examines instances of Gleichschaltung at the Hong Kong University of
Science & Technology, and elaborates on the ease with which Gleichschaltung
can be (and has been) implemented at the Hong Kong University of Science &
Technology.
2018
/ 12 / 10 Response
to division head’s “Merit Salary Review 2018” letter. Here Among others: What is presented as School
priorities has never been decided by the School faculty (i.e., we are simply
being given orders by HKUST management which pretends its decisions are
faculty’s decisions) and no rationale is being given (let alone that this is in
any way oriented towards research and teaching performance). Priorities are set such that the highest-paid faculty
/ managers look good. I show that HKUST management can’t add up one plus one—I
am being presented with a three-year
evaluation of my performance that cannot possibly be consistent with my
previous two years’ evaluations—and thus constitutes a (management) fabrication
devoid of the logic that supposedly underlies the evaluation: Management’s
claimed (published) review “rules” are pure pretense. Supporting document: The
division head’s merit review letter (here).
2019 / 3 / 25 A 10-page report by an external
advisory committee makes eight recommendations for SHSS, which, except for the
cross-disciplinary themes that have been management’s preoccupation for a long
time, are promptly ignored by HKUST management.
2019 / 6 / 6
Provost Lionel Ni appoints a committee to conduct an internal review
of SHSS to “assist the new leadership of the School and the senior management
in evaluating SHSS’s effectiveness, identifying new possibilities, and
developing its strategic plans” (here). The committee presents three
substantive slides with 16 bulleted theme points (that do not convey findings
or recommendations) at the School Board meeting on 5 September 2019 (which I do
not attend, see entry of 2013 / 9 / 5). The minutes provide no further
elaboration; they report eight disconnected faculty comments. The Provost’s
announcement mentions that ”it is expected that the Committee will consult
broadly within SHSS” and that “the findings of the internal review will be
shared with colleagues of SHSS in a written report [...]”; I was not consulted
and have not received a written report.
A dean’s email to SHSS faculty of 9
September 2021 includes the passage “we already had three external reviews last
year.” I assume one of these is the item 2019 / 3 / 25 and have no knowledge of
the other two.
2019
/ 11 / 26 Faculty
consultation on management’s definition of research active/inactive. My
scathing commentary is here.
I conclude “The
requirements are alien to academia, they are against freedom of research, and
ultimately constitute censorship of research methods / approaches. They reduce
the scope for research and eliminate diversity.” My comment has no impact on management’s
adoption of their (“proposed”) criteria for defining research active vs.
research inactive. A year later, Provost Lionel Ni discards the distinction of
research active vs. research inactive in favor of even more destructive
measures (see 2020/12/23 below).
2019
/ 12 / 19 Dean Kellee Tsai decides to in my 2019 salary adjustment raise my real
salary by 2.1%, an adjustment still below the salary increases of civil
servants and private sector employees in Hong Kong (with at least civil
servants additionally enjoying annual salary rank advancements, seniority pay
advancements, and possibly a promotion). I document another facet of the fake
merit review exercise: a quota system for salary increases? Here I include a
link to a webpage (here) with
documentation on, in my case, (1) the severe underfunding of the HKUST
retirement scheme (the general case I made later, here),
(2) my salary request of 2018 (my current salary is not a living wage, and I am
being heavily discriminated against in faculty comparisons), and (3) my
particular housing situation (added later). The following year, in 2020,
salaries are frozen, i.e., the general pay adjustment exercise does not happen,
though the dean may still make discretionary adjustments.
2020
/ 1 / 31 I
inquire about sabbatical leave from the division head and the Human
Resources Office and hear back from the division head (only, here),
who attaches a document that provides evidence
that HKUST management has abolished sabbatical leave (here,
“Operational Guidelines”). The Council
has not abolished it. The term “sabbatical leave” is now used to describe condensing one’s teaching such as to
create teaching-free semesters (pp. 6 and 10 of the pdf, not the page numbering
at the bottom of the pages).
2020
/ 4 / 16 Following an online faculty forum on 16 April
2020 at which my typed-in (“chat”) questions are ignored, I email the Provost
with my questions about the HKUST
Guangzhou campus. Here.
I do not receive a response.
2020
/ 6 / 25 “HKUST
Guangzhou Campus: A Critique” (here).
Article of 15 pages length. Abstract: At an online faculty forum on 16 April
2020 the management of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST)
provided an “update on the academic development” of a new HKUST Guangzhou
campus. Similar information is publicly available at https://gz.ust.hk/.
Questions arise about the motivation for the new campus, the benefits for
HKUST, the academic safeguards, and exit strategies. This article shares the
author’s observations as a HKUST faculty member. It touches upon the bigger
issues of changing university management practices, self-censorship and
academic freedom, and academia under a totalitarian regime.
2020
/ 7 / 31 In an email about grant applications, an
Associate Dean refers to the school’s research
active/inactive policy, which, however, has never been shared with School
faculty. I request a copy of the policy. (Associate Dean’s email with passage
highlighted, and my request, here.)
The dean’s office eventually produces a formal document that is shared with
school faculty (cover email with dubious truthfulness of third paragraph here,
policy document here).
On 22 September 2020, I seek further clarification and receive it, here.
A few months later, Provost Lionel Ni discards the distinction of research
active vs. research inactive in favor of even more destructive measures (see
2020/12/23 below).
2020
/ 9 / 3 The division head publishes an ‘Opinion’ in
the South China Morning Post titled “Hong Kong’s academic freedom is perfectly
safe.” I write a lengthy response (here),
which, in quite different form, is published in the Hong Kong Free Press (here).
2020
/ 12 / 6 My
employment contract provides fake assurance of academic freedom (here)
2020
/ 12 / 22 Write-up on HKUST’s pension fiasco (here)
2020
/ 12 / 23 Reflections on the Provost’s statements at the Social Science Division meeting on 7
December 2020 (here). The Provost gave an approximately 15 minute speech covering current,
not division-specific topics. My reflections provide a critique of issues
raised in his speech and thereby a critique of current issues at HKUST: I
discredit the Provost’s rationale for the HKUST Guangzhou campus, lay all blame
for any perceived lack of faculty productivity at the Provost’s feet, question
his whipping faculty into making money for him, ridicule the focus on “star”
professors, show how his student numbers game destroys the school, note his
intention to continue the practice of fake sabbatical leave, point out the
severe underfunding of faculty pensions (with the Provost’s
planned extension of retirement age from age 65 to 68 apparently not designed
with this problem in mind), and wonder why he is selling us out to the
world’s fourth-worst oppressor when he does not have to.
A joint
email from President and Provost on 10 March 2021 announces “a structured approach to recognize high-performing faculty for
possible extension of appointment beyond the University's normal retirement age
of 65” and links to a document (dated 9 March 2021) without letterhead or
signature that provides further details: performance reviews by School- and
University-level Review Committees and by the President, with submission for
approval to the Standing Committee of the Council; an initial extension of 3
years followed by maximally three one-year extensions, and “relevant [faculty]
will be arranged to attend annual health check-up prior to and during the
period of extension.” These arrangements openly contradict former HKUST
President Tony Chan’s 2011 public statement that HKUST embraces the American
model of higher education (here), in which case there would be no mandatory
retirement age and no reviews. My personal experience with HKUST’s “reviews” is
a 67% failure quota (here). The only innovation of these
arrangements appears to be the facilitation of contract extension for
“recognize[d] high-performing faculty;” HKUST’s underfunded faculty pensions (here for the general case, and here
for my case) are never mentioned.
2021 / 3 Division
head and Dean violate HKUST sabbatical leave regulations.
I apply for sabbatical leave in
2021/22 (here).
(i) In my reading, the Human Resources Office confirms that the division head
and dean violate university rules on sabbatical leave, and (ii) the dean turns
down my application with one false and one irrelevant statement.
Ad (i): The
division head’s staff ask me how I will “make up” my “normal teaching duties”
while on “sabbatical” leave. Note the contradiction in terms, at HKUST
sabbatical leave means “normal teaching duties.”
I request
the Human Resources Office confirm that the university regulations on
sabbatical leave posted on its website—regulations which include no requirement
to “make up” the teaching of the sabbatical leave year—are the only relevant
rules for sabbatical leave, and the Human Resources Office confirms that “The
posted Regulations are accurate and include all relevant information” (here [staff’s email, my response, Human
Resources’ response]).
The Human
Resources Office thus regards as irrelevant (or illegitimate?) the
dean/provost’s unpublished “Operational Guidelines” (here).
Since dean and provost need to approve sabbatical leave, the dean/provost’s
private “Operational Guidelines” take precedence over and invalidate university
regulations.
How this is
consistent with HKUST’s proclaimed “core value” of “integrity” is beyond me.
(Though it might be consistent with another HKUST core value, the “can-do
spirit” which would mean “management can
do whatever they like, in gross disregard of university regulations.” Not
that it matters: HKUST has no supervision mechanisms, let alone enforcement
mechanisms for management’s proclaimed “core values.”)
Ad (ii)
Separately, following my application, the division head informs me that the
dean rejects my sabbatical leave application, giving two arguments; I respond
that one argument is false and the other irrelevant (here [my initial email, the division head’s
negative email, my response]).
Subsequently,
staff informs me on 12 April 2021: “Your application form is returned to you in your mailbox as Provost
Office advised that no further process is required for application not
recommended by both Head and Dean.
As you are aware of, kindly please be
reminded again that:
·
“Sabbatical leave is
not an appointee’s contractual right and is subject to approval by the
University on application.”
·
“Faculty members
should be reminded not to view sabbatical leave as an entitlement.””
What gets
lost is that, given the dean/provost’s “Operational Guidelines,” I de facto
never applied for sabbatical leave but for a specific temporal allocation of my
teaching obligations combined with permission to at other times fully engage in
academia, outside the dean/provost’s detention center.
2021 / 4 / 2 My colleague C.K. Lee is attacked in Wenhuibao (Wen Wei Po), a newspaper controlled by the “Liaison
Office of the Chinese government” in Hong Kong and considered by the Hong Kong
public the second-least credible media outlet in 2019
(the least credible being Dagongbao
[Ta Kung Pao], another newspaper controlled by the “Liaison Office of the
Chinese government”). My take on the
matter, shared with colleagues, is here. Supporting documents: HKUST president’s email, attachment to my email.
The HKUST
library maintains an archive of news clippings from newspapers and
magazines about HKUST; the newspapers covered include Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung
Pao. “Due to resources constraints and restrictions on copyright, effective 1st
June 2006, only selected newspapers/articles are included here.” I was unable
to find any article on C.K. Lee in these HKUST archives. (The top dozen HKUST
administrators appear to be informed by HKUST’s public relations office of
university-relevant media articles twice a week. Faculty members / researchers
are not privy to such information.)
This
colleague has been attacked in the same press before, and an anonymous attempt
has been made to have disciplinary actions initiated against her within HKUST (here).
2021 / 4 / 12 I self-nominate for the title of ‘chair professor’ (here) and never hear back (am not awarded the
title). Supporting document: CV.
2022 / 4 / 11
I re-submit my self-nomination.
2021 / 5 / 7 My 2020 salary update. Following
the (somewhat belated) receipt of my 2019 report card, I note everyone’s 2.3%
real salary cut due to the 2020 nominal salary freeze while the HKUST
president’s nominal “remuneration package” went up by 9.8% (here). In a ‘personal statement’ enclosed with
my this year’s (April 2021) “Annual Activities Report” I note that my salary as
full professor after 26 years at HKUST is, at best, in the bottom 21% of HKUST
staff salaries; my real salary has been basically flat for the last 17 years;
and the trend of comparable salaries across the Hong Kong economy has been
diverging sharply from mine (here).
Supporting document: HKUST
5-Year Plan 2020
2021 / 8 / 30
Assembly of more than 4 people,
even with social distancing, outdoors, is strictly prohibited by the Hong
Kong government. HKUST assembles 400
students in a severely closed-in space (lecture theatre) with absolutely no
social distancing. For HKUST administrators, that’s not a problem (here). Aside: Nor do HKUST administrators have
any problem nearly doubling the teaching load of faculty members by requiring
face-to-face plus simultaneous Zoom online teaching. (Making each class
suitable to such an arrangement took me a lot of time.)
2021 / 9 / 1
I propose to the School Board
that the School of Humanities and Social Sciences be disbanded because
practicing social science (and probably similarly in the case of the
humanities) is no longer possible at HKUST. (Here) Result: minimal engagement in a
discussion of academic freedom. No further outcome.
2021 / 10 / 18
I apply for sabbatical leave in 2022/23 and HKUST administrators require me to violate HKUST’s sabbatical leave
rules, as I explain here. My (unanswered) sabbatical leave
application becomes redundant when I am being granted no-pay leave for 2022/23
in late January 2022.
2022 / 2 / 15
I stop reviewing grant proposals
for the Research Grants Council due to a (in my view) severely flawed
review process and the academically highly destructive use to which RGC
decisions are being put within HKUST. Here. For the RGC’s response see here. For my recent experiences applying for a
grant administered by the Research Grants Council, see here.
2022
/ 4 / 24 HKUST’s management requires faculty members to submit
an “Annual Activities Report.” I am allowed to include a maximally 2-page
personal statement (here), in which, this year, I set forth, among
others, the burden of teaching and research in times of a Covid as well as a
“national security” pandemic, the strange allocation of teaching duties in my
division, and my exceptional financial situation at HKUST due to the lack of
housing.
2023
/ 4/ 30 My
‘personal statement’ enclosed with my this year’s (April 2023) “Annual
Activities Report” here, ruminating about the implications of no-pay leave, the lack of a
housing allowance, the obstacles to research that HKUST managers impose, and
what kind of behaviour leads to success at HKUST.
