The president of Taipei's Shih Hsin University told graduates to end their own lives if they couldn't handle the workforce, remarks that led to widespread anger. Yang Mien-chieh and Jake Chung of The Taipei Times add that he subsequently requested a two-month suspension of his duties and pay to atone.
Chen Ching-he made the comments May 30 during a commencement address on self-management and career development, and the advice was mostly as one might expect for such an event. But after urging graduates to manage their time and master their emotions after entering the workforce, he suggested that those who failed to do so should "quickly end themselves" because the world no longer needed them.
Many listeners took the line as a reference to suicide, though the original Mandarin was ambigious enough for the Taipei Times to translate it differently, more suggestive of ending one's ego than one's life.
"If you don't manage your time well, or your own emotions, or your health, then I am telling every one of you — put a quick end to 'you,' because the world has no need for 'you.'"
In a statement Friday, Chen apologized, blamed a tight schedule for the speech going out unvetted, and said he meant only to encourage graduates to improve their skills. His unpaid leave begins June 8; the university's Vice President, Lin Heng-chih, will serve as acting president. The university issued its own apology and said operations would continue as usual.
Commencement season is reliably hazardous for academic administrators: last month, more than 1,000 University of Michigan faculty demanded their president retract an apology he issued over a Faculty Senate chair's graduation remarks about Gaza.
But neither he nor Chen were dumb enough to hype AI to the new jobseekers.
University president apologizes for remarks [Taipei Times]
