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Professors who profane Confucius and socialist values should go
By Wang Yong |
April 8, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
"DON'T say you're my student if you've amassed less than 40 million yuan (US$6.1 million) yuan when you turn 40."
That was professor Dong Fan's demand of his graduate students, a demand he egregiously tweeted online on April 4, three days after April Fool's Day. "Poverty means shame and failure to someone with an advanced academic degree," he said . He's been slapped in the face by astonished and angry netizens, who now call him Dong Qian Qian, or Money Money Dong.
Indeed, even by Dong's standard of success, would someone who amassed 40 million yuan by age 41 qualify as his student? Would someone who accumulated 40 million yuan at 40 but went broke at 41 be qualified as his pupil?
Born in 1967, Dong got a doctoral degree in economics in 2003 and is now a professor of management and director of real estate research at Beijing Normal University. Last month, he said real estate was "the mother" of all other industries. In April 2009, he said anyone opposed to revival of the real estate industry was "against national interests" and "anti-human."
Despite his open challenge to Confucian and socialist values, he has kept his job and title.
He even profaned the motto of his own university. In 1915, its motto was "Honesty, bravery, diligence, love." In 1996, its motto was changed to what it is now: "Be a master in learning, and a model in behavior." Nowhere in either of those college mottos can one find any suggestion of money.
A society or university is flawed not because it has some flawed people, but because those flawed people have abused free speech and are never kicked out.
That was professor Dong Fan's demand of his graduate students, a demand he egregiously tweeted online on April 4, three days after April Fool's Day. "Poverty means shame and failure to someone with an advanced academic degree," he said . He's been slapped in the face by astonished and angry netizens, who now call him Dong Qian Qian, or Money Money Dong.
Indeed, even by Dong's standard of success, would someone who amassed 40 million yuan by age 41 qualify as his student? Would someone who accumulated 40 million yuan at 40 but went broke at 41 be qualified as his pupil?
Born in 1967, Dong got a doctoral degree in economics in 2003 and is now a professor of management and director of real estate research at Beijing Normal University. Last month, he said real estate was "the mother" of all other industries. In April 2009, he said anyone opposed to revival of the real estate industry was "against national interests" and "anti-human."
Despite his open challenge to Confucian and socialist values, he has kept his job and title.
He even profaned the motto of his own university. In 1915, its motto was "Honesty, bravery, diligence, love." In 1996, its motto was changed to what it is now: "Be a master in learning, and a model in behavior." Nowhere in either of those college mottos can one find any suggestion of money.
A society or university is flawed not because it has some flawed people, but because those flawed people have abused free speech and are never kicked out.
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