Upgrade

Just found out today that as of the next academic year (2016-2017), I'll be a Senior Lecturer. As I told a colleague, this mainly means I'll have to order a whole new set of business cards....

Well, and the fact that I have a new title. One that sounds kind of cool (if I were in the UK). A couple of years ago I was chatting on Facebook with folks about the term "non-tenure track" and how it defined us in terms of what we aren't. We tossed back and forth some possible alternative titles. I suggested "reader" would be most apropos, considering that reading is most of what I do as a writing instructor...

[Update, 6/2/16: Now they've decided to change our titles from "lecturer" to "teaching professor." So I'll be an Associate Teaching Professor. (Good thing I hadn't already ordered new business cards...)]

Writing group resurrected? and other musings

We're trying to get the writing group going again, though it will be with fewer people. We'll see how the meetings go. We're supposed to have a meeting on Feb. 11 if the weather permits. We're still emailing each other each Friday with some information about how we're doing on our projects. So far I've succeeded in writing a conference proposal and sending it in. My next (current) project is to work on a paper for a conference in May where I've been invited to present. My paper is on George Kerr (GHK).

One of the nice things about being off the tenure track is that I can choose my projects and work on what I'm really interested in. But the disadvantages include having less time to work on projects and less external (instrumental?) motivation for working on research because my work isn't valued by the university in the same way that the work of a TT person would be. So I have to motivate myself to write. I also have to decide if I want to write for a scholarly audience, a general audience, or something in between. That decision partly depends on my future goals as well, though (if I intend to stay off the tenure track forever or not). I sort of bounce back and forth between extremes when it comes to these issues. I wonder what other non-TT people in situations similar to mine are doing...?

Some changes in the works regarding (some) foreign scholars?

The former native Chinese speaker pointed out this article to me in the China Times that mentions a few interesting things about work permits and visas for foreign scholars. Some of them are a bit confusing (to me, anyway), so I want to write this out to see if I'm clear about it.

The article mentions that Taiwan University was having trouble getting a work permit for a foreign Nobel scholar they wanted to bring in to lecture, so legislator Ding Shouzhong is pushing for some changes to the Employment Services Act (就業服務法) to allow foreign scholars in to do research or teaching for up to six months, pending approval of the MOE. In other words, they wouldn't need to go through the process of getting a work permit through the Council of Labor Affairs, a process which includes getting blood tests for HIV and venereal diseases. (There's an interesting racial/class issue in this whole thing, by the way--particularly in this article, that suggests that it's too embarrassing to ask famous foreign scholars to submit to the kind of process required of foreign laborers.)

There's more to say about this article, but I don't have time to work through it right now. (Got other things to do.) Anyway, below is a copy of the article in Chinese:

台大去年有意聘請諾貝爾得主崔琦來台講學，卻因需申請工作證而受阻。立委丁守中昨天在立法院衛環委員會提案，並通過修正《就業服務法》第四十八條，增列經教育部認可，即可來台進行六個月內短期講座、學術研究，不受限是否有工作證。

對此修法，學界一片叫好。台大主秘傅立成大表贊同，他說，延聘海外知名學者是追求國際化的重要環節，禮遇有益促進學術交流，是相當進步的政策。半年免工作，即表示可一整個學期待在台灣，都免辦工作證，對學界相當方便。

陽明大學校長吳妍華表示，之前找國外學者來台，得經過體檢是否有愛滋病、傳染病。但大學實在開不了口要求海外大師配合抽血檢驗。現在都免了，邀請更方便。

成大校長賴明詔說，以前的方式對學者太不尊重，像是「外勞」，要花二、三個月向勞工局申請，對校方是沈重的負擔。

我國《就業服務法》第四十八條明白規定，「各級政府及其所屬學術研究機構聘請擔任顧問、研究工作者，或與中華民國國民結婚並獲准居留者，不需申請許可」。去年傳出台大聘請諾貝爾得主崔琦來台講學卻需申請工作證，引發爭議。

勞委會主委王如玄指出，教育部蒐集十四個國家對大專院校聘僱國際知名人士規定，僅四個國家簡化行政流程和文件，但所有國家都要求入境工作就需申請許可，沒有優惠待遇。勞委會需顧及本國人工作權益，不宜對外國學者來台從事學術研究工作全面免申請許可。

經勞委會、教育部和丁守中等立委協商後，增列進行六個月內短期講座、學術研究者，經教育部認可，可免申請許可。全案送院會審查。