Chen Wen-chang (陳文章), dean of National Taiwan University’s (NTU) College of Engineering, is to become the university’s new president after yesterday winning in two rounds of voting.
A source familiar with the election process said it was convoluted because the School of Medicine and the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science nominated multiple candidates.
Aside from being a recognized academic, an eligible candidate for the nation’s national chair professorship program and holder of numerous patents, Chen is also known as a capable administrator, with one of his proudest moments being when he raised funds to build multiple dormitories for the engineering college, the source said.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kun, Taipei Times
NTU is a comprehensive university, making it difficult to secure external funding, but Chen has been competent in securing investments not only for the college, but also for other units, NTU Election Committee convener Liang Kung-yi (梁賡義) said.
The election process was “smooth and peaceful,” as the committee had previously interviewed the candidates and was fully briefed on their ideals for running a university, Liang said.
The committee met in the afternoon, debating for an hour the voting method.
It voted on six candidates in the first round, which whittled the candidates down to two, he said.
Chen is to succeed NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管仲閔) after Kuan’s term comes to an end on Jan. 7 next year, Kung said.
Wearing masks should only be required on public transportation and at crowded venues, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health professor Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. In his weekly online live broadcast on the COVID-19 pandemic, Chen said the virus is becoming endemic around the world and Taiwan should bring its policies in line with other countries, despite its success in curbing earlier outbreaks of COVID-19 and slowing its spread. He said there should be an orderly transformation from a pandemic to an endemic phase to ensure that society can restore its normal operations. However, as respiratory viruses spread faster between October
NO LETUP: Yesterday’s number of cases was 8.6 percent higher than that reported on Tuesday last week and the second-highest count of the Omicron BA.5 outbreak The border reopening plan remains unchanged, even though 49,509 new domestic COVID-19 infections were reported, the second-highest since the wave of cases involving the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 began in August, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that 49,509 new local cases, 65 imported cases and 31 deaths were confirmed yesterday. He said the local daily caseload was 8.6 percent higher than that reported on Tuesday last week and the second-highest daily count of the Omicron BA.5 outbreak, only slightly lower than the
BA.5 WAVE AT PEAK? The numbers of daily cases are plateauing, but a renewed increase cannot be ruled out, the Central Epidemic Command Center said People aged 18 to 49 are from Tuesday eligible to receive Moderna’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 54,874 new local cases, the highest daily caseload since a wave of the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 began. Booster doses of the Omicron-adapted vaccine should be administered at least 12 weeks after a previous COVID-19 vaccination, which includes the last dose of the primary series, the additional dose to the primary series for immunocompromised people or the first boster dose, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The Advisory Committee on Immunization
Taiwan’s population shrank by 0.99 percent — or more than 230,000 people — year-on-year last month, statistics released by the Ministry of the Interior showed. The population as of the end of last month was 23,198,133, down 232,815 people compared with 23,430,948 in the same month last year, the data showed. The loss was much bigger than the 0.58 percent decline — or 137,430 fewer people — in September last year from the same month in 2020, the data showed. It was also far greater than the population drop of 25,405, or 0.11 percent in September 2020 compared with the same month in
