It would be unthinkable and unlawful!  Yet the President was allowed to get away with this. Thanks dude

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Dear 1.44,

PBPR did start from Way and his puppets of the management team. However, they design their assessment metrics and they appoint the assessors. Of course, even their research performance is lower than that of assistant professor, their teaching is worse than instructor II and administration is much worse than EO they would still get salary increment and contract renewal!!!

Way, there is only one place on earth that you may implement such PBPR: North Korea. Go apply the president post in a N Korean university. In there, no one dare to challenge you, so you can saftely claim yourself as vet specialist, neclear specialist, kimchi specialist…...

THE EVILS OF THE SO-CALLED “PBPR”

1) The “DPAC” system under the so-called “PBPR’ is unjust, exploitative and demeaning
Before the current President assumed power, CityU has been using an established performance evaluation system whereby employees of all ranks (clerical officers, EO/AOs; Assistant, Associate and Full Professors, etc) had the right to elect representatives among themselves into the Department Staffing Committee (DSC).  This DSC system led us through two decades of successes and impressive strides.

Under the newly established PBPR, the DSC is replaced by a Departmental Performance Assessment Committee (DPAC), and only Full Professors and Chair Professors can elect and be elected as “DPAC members.”  I.e., all employees below the rank of Full Professor are brutally barred from electing or being elected/appointed.  Moreover, if your department has less than two Full/Chair professors, the Dean/Line Manager is empowered to appoint any Full/Chair professor(s) from any other department as your “DPAC member(s)” without seeking any input (let alone “consent”) from your department.  This shows how hideously arrogant the “PBPR”’s designers are; they simply declared that the overwhelming majority of CityU’s employees do not deserve even a superficial (however perfunctory) participatory channel in PBPR’s implementation.

The purpose is obvious.  The President’s clique has lamented openly and repeatedly that the established DSCs have been too soft on their own colleagues over the years.  A much more “effective” way to squeeze us is to empower only people who are completely detached from us to pass sentence on us.

2) The despotic arrangements under “DPAC” and “PBPR” facilitate further blatant favouritism by the President
A recently-publicized document announced that, in future, “recommendations for advancement to ‘Chair Professor’ will only be made on a nomination basis by the Provost or President.”  The relevant background is that the President is already renowned for appointing his friends with very poor credentials to high positions; this includes a former Provost with a zero-A-paper count, the zero-research-record invisible professor in the Provost’s Office, and a highly-paid “advisor” who does not have even a decent higher degree and who just retired recently as a letter-writing “secretary.”

Moreover, strangely, Chair Professors are explicitly excluded from PBPR’s criteria; i.e., they will be evaluated by the President using a “black box.”  Thus, PBPR’s criteria cannot protect a disobedient Chair Professor who performs well under the criteria, but a poor-performing but obedient Chair Professor can be handsomely rewarded by the President, and nobody can question anything.

In other words, under the new system, the President has complete and arbitrary power over the appointment and reward of Chair Professors, and Chair Professors have complete control over all the departmental DPACs.  DPAC’s minutes are also “confidential.”  This scary system is much worse than the despotic Ming and Qing regimes, where at least a good number of mandarins brought up under Confucianism remembered their intellectuals’ obligations to stand up against imperial abuses.  In today’s CityU’s environment, the despot will go completely unchecked.

3)  “PBPR” leads to an unhealthy teaching environment
It is well-known that teaching evaluation scores do NOT measure “good teaching” reliably.  Most internationally prestigious universities recognize the complexity of this issue; hence, they use teaching evaluation scores as only one of many indicators in a holistic approach to evaluate teaching performance.  In contrast, the so-called “PBPR” ties teaching evaluation scores directly and quantitatively with pay raises in a ridiculously simplistic and mechanistic way.  The system exerts pressure on all teachers to concentrate on a single goal – improving one’s own teaching evaluation scores.  The damaging effect of this system should be obvious to anybody who has taught even a single course conscientiously.

To further tighten the screws, the President’s clique recently forced all departments to switch from our well-established in-class evaluations to internet evaluations, knowing full well that this will lead to a very low response rate among students.  This gives the President-controlled DPAC even more arbitrary power.  A good score obtained by a non-subservient teacher (or a bad score of a “friend” or subservient teacher) can be dismissed with the excuse of “low response rate.”  A university document also advised teachers to encourage students to participate by offering rewards.  Later, a non-subservient teacher can be easily accused of “bribing” while a “friend” can get away with blatant bribery.

Without the presence of elected members from various ranks (as in our old Department Staffing Committee structure), the three DPAC members only need to obey and answer to a single channel of absolute command.

4)  “PBPR” leads to a counter-productive, oppressive and unethical intellectual environment
Binding a scholar throughout his/her entire CityU scholastic career to a restrictive journal list and an inherently arbitrary point system is so obviously insane that there is hardly any need to elaborate the system’s many internal faults.

The system is made even more evil by the many recent senior-level appointments made to people with ludicrously inadequate research records.  These appointments continually remind us that the only way to escape the oppressive “PBPR” is to join the President’s “slave-owners” clique.  You can then become a “Professor” with an empty research record or even a “Provost” or “President” without a single Category-1 journal paper; all you have to do is to devise ways to squeeze the “slaves” under you to produce ever more papers in “listed” journals.

5) Under the so-called “PBPR,” many employees will never get COLA again
The recurring funding from our Hong Kong government provides for a “Cost of Living Adjustment” (COLA) for all employees, and a major reason for creating “PBPR” is to empower the President’s clique to confiscate this huge amount of money.  Funding the President’s private “social welfare” club for his friends require only a small percentage of this amount, but the President must find a source to finance his private veterinary school.

The senior management university remain unchange in terms of using the tatics of unfair, immoral and dictatorial to achieve the ranking. 

I am one of the teaching staff been recommended for a 2-years renewal contract by the DSC and Department. A separate reveiw was done by the senior management, then it changed the decision of DSC and Department after three months.

The most disappointing issue is that the senior management repeatedly disregards the professional views of DSC and the Department. As this incident happened in 2008. This incident had caused a huge discussion on the integrity of the University management, and it’s still an issue till now. The incident already caused low morale of existing staff, many administrative problems were disclosed on the website; worse off, the employment rate of our graduates is falling since then.

My view on this ranking exercise propelled by the senior management, the results are as below:

The winners: the senior management get fat salry and good PR look with government support.

The loosers: students who are going to graduate, in view of little support from the experienced teaching staff. Those that the senior management want to get rid of; decidated teaching staff that get the warning with an invalidated basis (TFQ), and highly possible to job loss in the near futur; tax payers, especialy parents, who thought that their children are going to have a bright future after getting into university; fresh graduates that don’t have sufficient support in order to compete with other institutions that properly handle the staffing issue.

The Insanity of CityU’s New TFQ System Imbedded in the So-Called PBPR System

TFQ (teaching evaluation) scores will be used at face value in the so-called PBPR scheme.  If you get a TFQ score of 5.80, you are an “outstanding” teacher.  If your score is 4.99 (i.e., 0.81 points below 5.80), you are merely “satisfactory;” i.e., “no good.”  “Outstanding” performance will be rewarded with “a multiple of X%” of pay increment.  “Satisfactory” performance will get zilch.  The preceding approach is so patently absurd in so many different aspects that it is truly a sad reflection of CityU’s current “academic” environment; i.e., everybody knows it is wrong, but nobody opposes it.  The only thing that comes close to this mass-paralysis mentality is what happened during the Cultural Revolution; most people sensed that things were not right, but everybody knew that the only chance to survive is to blend into the chorus of “Long Live XXX.” 

Yet, even the insanity described above does not satisfy the sadistic craze of the university administration.  So, over the repeated objections of the departments involved, we were forced to replace the time-tested paper evaluation procedure with the internet version; and they now have to admit that the response rate is unacceptably and embarrassingly low.  A group of people so stupid as not to foresee this consequence is unfit to be even grave diggers, let alone university administrators.
Yet again, merely imposing sadism and stupidity does not satisfy the administration’s obsession on flaunting its absolute and arbitrary power.  They have to show that they can also be totally irresponsible.  Thus, instead of simply correcting or making amends for their own blunders, the university administration’s response is to make us suffer more in order to salvage their idiotic creation.  According to a recent administrative directive, CityU teachers are now asked to “offer rewards to students for doing the evaluations” and to “explain to students the negative impact of a low response rate on the instructor.”

“Offer rewards”?  Like giving $xx or adding XX bonus examination points for filling out an evaluation form?  In any other educational institution, this will be correctly recognized as bribery.  But, compared to the many scam under-the-counter appointments the President makes routinely, petty briberies like offering rewards for doing evaluations are apparently considered as perfectly acceptable according to the ethical standards of the President’s clique.  Let’s hope someday Hong Kong’s legislative candidates will also give us “rewards” for going to the polling stations to fill out electoral ballots.

As for telling students that we will suffer if they don’t fill out the evaluation forms, one of my colleagues told me that, at the end of a guided group tour he joined recently, the tour guide begged everybody in the group to fill out the evaluation forms and said that her ability to keep her job and get a raise will depend on whether she can get every group member to fill out the forms.  At that time, my colleague felt sorry for her.  But now, he feels sorry for himself.  After years of doctoral/post-doctoral work and countless sleepless nights for doing “Category-1” papers, he realizes that his job as a university professor at CityU is really quite similar to the tour-guide’s job.

Unbelievable Con-Artists

First, it has been proven beyond doubt, using publicly verifiable records, that President K has never published a single Category-1 paper in his entire life.  Then it was proven, again using public records, that this President hired, through the back door, a Full Professor who has, for all practical purposes, an empty research and publication record.  Yet, President K and his lackeys continue to go around pretending to be “role models” and imposing ridiculous demands on the rank-and-files workers, including forcing down our throats the so called PBPR system that will deprive us of even the meager COLA adjustments that we used to be able to earn.

This has to be the meanest and most shameless administration in the history of the City Polytechnic and CityU.

If the performance based pay scheme really works, why don’t we start applying it to the Presidents and Vice-presidents first! If we are to evaluate the performance of the management using their own yardstick and according to CityU Member, they may not even be qualified to get substantiation needless to say holding key positions at City University. I must say. I do agree with this assertion.

The method which the current president, Way Kuo, used to achieve high university ranking was unfair, immoral and dictatorial.  Most undergraduate students and tax paying parents would oppose to the idea of the university sacrificing the quality of teaching be getting rid of many experienced dedicated teaching staff in order to make it possible for the university to hire more research staff.

Yes, the management has the right to re-structure.  But it must do so in a way that is fair, transparent and accountable to the tax payer of Hong Kong, its student population and to staff members.  Changing the benchmark half way through the finishing line is not a fair way to play any game.  Just like it would be equally unfair to raise the pass mark half way for students.  That would be unthinkable and unlawful!  Yet the President was allowed to get away with this.

Most responsible employer of higher education instructions or any business organizations will not evaluate their teachers or trainers solely on scores of one evaluation instrument.  To assess a staff member’s performance purely on the scores of one evaluation instrument, which is in itself is flawed, biased and full of conflict of interests, is a reflection of lazy management.

The above view is just from one individual staff member.  However, I feel sure that it is a view is shared strongly by all teaching staff members and by any reasonable person in the street looking at it from an objective angle.  The way the President behaved over this staffing fiasco is totally shameful from any angle you look at it.

I also suggest that the President should use public funding wisely and take a good look at the value of each research publication rather than wasting tax payers’ money on funding unnecessary research that is not useful to society for the sake of university ranking!

CityU hired some very expansive administrators last year. One was hired to make the president’s “top 100” ranking dream come, but it turned out to be a mistake. One was hired to make the president’s vet school dream come true, but it turned out to be CityU’s own “Foot In Mouth” disaster. One was hired to make the president’s opponents’ nightmare come true, but one of the president’s opponents turned it into the president’s own nightmare. Now you know how the 18% budget increase on hiring administrators is account for. One wonders how the top management has lasted so long without being held accountable for such gross incompetence and mismanagement.

Does PBPR also apply to the senior management?  Just take a look at how City University is prepared for the 4-year curriculum!  What a disaster!  Do you know that last year CityU’s budget increased 18% in hiring more administrators and 4% in academic staff?  Of course, you thought the management should have hired more academic staff in view of the 4-year curriculum.  Where have all the money gone?  Definitely not looking for academic talents!

Do you know that in the past City Univesity used to have a 80 : 20 rule?  That is, in each department 80% should be permanent staff and 20% on contract terms.  Now, it is just the reverse; 40% permanent and 60% contract.

Do you know that at City University superannuation is gone?  It is history!  Even if you get substantiated, do you know the management can fire you anytime (with 3 months’ notice)?  Why should we accept contract after contract, without getting pemanent status. 

This is the report card of the senior management.  Incompetent to the core.  They flunk in almost all subjects!

performance based pay review should start with the President (highly paid spoiler) and his chief (highly paid manipulator) and his vet school director (highly paid mistake). Accountability should start from the top and across-the-board. Or it’s just another tool for the management to abuse its power.