On-Line Challenges to Professorial Authority

This is the age of new media, the era of the information explosion when radio and television show hosts challenge their audiences to call in and make their views known. On computer-networked university campuses, however, students need not open their mouths to express their opinions. Instead they let their fingers do the talking at the computer keyboard.

Computer networks have largely taken over the functions of the old campus notice boards. Transmission via computer networks not only goes a lot farther a lot faster, but it also allows for instant viewing, conversations, and inter-campus exchange. It's no wonder students are so enamored of it. （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）

Today's college students curse, make friends, discuss current events, engage in idle chitchat, and make wisecracks on computer bulletin boards. Yet once professors become the objects of invective, jokes and gossip, isn't the traditional respect for teachers put at risk?

Computer networks are coming to be seen as important channels for exercising student power. The university administration agreed to provide more convenient access to this motorcycle parking lot behind National Chengchih University after students protested on line.

Now that campuses are wired to the hilt, will traditional moral structures there collapse?

At lunch time the computer centers at National Taiwan University and National Chengchih University are packed. The networking group at the NTU computer center estimates that most of the people who use the center do so for its computer bulletin boards (or BBSs as they are known among computer geeks). Sun Yeali, an associate professor of information management at NTU and head of computer networks there, notes that students these days can type Chinese remarkably fast. If asked their secret, they will inevitably explain that they "get lots of practice on a BBS."

"Writing on a BBS is like going to a public bath house," explains one frequenter. "It doesn't matter if you're a general, a professor, or whoever, once you're inside you peel off your clothes and expose yourself, or your mind anyway, for everyone to see."

Behind a one-way mirror

The extent to which college students love BBSs once prompted Providence University President Lee Chia-tung to write a public letter expressing a wish that students wouldn't waste too much time on them, especially since so much of what is posted there is "nonsense" and "untruths."

University campuses once had anonymous "black letters" posted everywhere, but pasting them up required some physical effort. By posting on a BBS, you make your message available to networked computers across Taiwan-or for that matter around the world-with a few key strokes. The old limitations of time and space have suddenly been smashed.

Three years ago, National Chengchih University shut down the "Tzuimeng River BBS," when students who were upset by a move to make on-campus parking available to faculty only attacked professors as "running dogs" of the university president. But nowhere is beyond the reach of a networked computer, and news of the shut-down spread on Chinese networks around the world. This on-line discussion combined with student protest made the university administration consider reopening the BBS. But the computer center came to view it as a hot potato that it simply didn't want to handle.

Since others can't see your face or hear your voice on a BBS, it's easy for people to hide their identities and genders. Talking on a BBS is like "speaking from behind a one-way mirror," says Sun Yeali. It's like there's a layer of protection that seems to absolve you from any responsibility for what you say.

To sue or not to sue

In 1995, postings on the "Stories of the Coconut Grove" BBS at NTU besmirched the reputations of five instructors in the mechanical engineering department. Over the course of two months, fake confessions from these instructors appeared in which they "admitted" to being irresponsible teachers and "confessed" to all sorts of vile acts that they had supposedly committed in classrooms and offices. The department reported the incidents to the police whose investigation revealed that the prank was being carried out by two department graduates. The instructors asked them to make a public apology, and in exchange dropped a libel suit.

That same year the "electric motorcycle incident" rocked the campus of National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu. It resulted in 13 students being sued and student-faculty relations souring.

After the university administration, for environmental reasons, banned gasoline-powered motorcycles on campus, non-polluting "electric motorcycles" began to be promoted there. When a notice promoting these NT$30,000 bikes was posted on the BBS, students put a poster up on campus and wrote messages on line giving voice to suspicions that Materials Science Professor Chou Chuo-hui, who had participated in the decision to ban motorcycles from campus, was taking advantage of the situation to help the dealers selling electric motorcycles that he had designed.

Chou held that when students wrote that he was "using campus resources to conduct commercial activities and misusing academic credentials to endorse a product," they were committing libel, and he sued the 13 students who had signed their names to the poster.

In response, students in the department of life sciences (in which nine of the 13 were majors) collected information and made a home page devoted to their defense, which included the indictment papers, poster graphics, receipts for electric motorcycle payments signed by Chou's assistant, and media reports on the incident.

Eventually the university administration stepped in, and after negotiations, the professor said "he could understand the students' viewpoint" and agreed to drop the lawsuit unconditionally.

Dead wood

For sure, modern society is threatening the Chinese tradition of respect for teachers. But do these incidents regarded as extraordinary special cases by the universities collectively show that the old notion that "a teacher for a day is a father for life" has been laid to its grave by computer networks?

Liu Ta-chuan, the head of the networking group at Chiaotung University, says "Networks encapsulate the world outside them, and all of the bad stuff that happens out there can happen on line as well." The question is, is the proportion of the bad higher on line than off?

Liu argues that there is nothing unusual about the extent of such unpleasantness on line: profs may be slandered there, but they were slandered in the old "black letters"; and postmen's sacks are loaded down with junk mail too.

Lin Cheng-ho, a doctoral student in information science at Tsing Hua University and the creator of the "Windy Bridge" BBS there, uses the metaphor "a big tree has dead wood" to describe the negative side of campus computer networks. He says that students are no different from workers who take great pleasure in making fun of the boss behind his back, and that students' comments, rather than being harsh invective, are mostly of a harmless nature, such as descriptions of the jokes professors tell in class. The whole phenomenon he ascribes to just plain old "human nature."

Accidental or inevitable?

Computer networks may not cause lawsuits between professors and their students, but having become channels through which students can release their emotions and unleash their opinions, they have caused some subtle changes to the model of student-faculty communication.

While libel on line may be out of the ordinary, discussions of professors' clothes, teaching style, and grading standards are common and inevitable.

Sun Yeali has read an on-line description of one professor as a "sleaze ball in a suit." Another professor, who routinely handed out marks of over 80, was noted for his "gut classes" (the student added that "this instructor has no principles whatsoever").

Liu Ting, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at NTU, agrees that such talk is a problem, noting that if students just write on-line that a certain instructor is "too boring and puts people to sleep in class," the pressures of public opinion will bear down on the professor.

Although it is very common for students on BBSs to speak of all and sundry regarding their professors, a single BBS may have dozens of discussion areas and tens of thousands of letters, the bulk of which consist of students chatting about their own affairs or activity group announcements. The few postings about profs are always obscured by the many in which students pour out their emotions. And anti-instructor invective reaches high tide only after students have seen their grades and before a new term's classes begin.

Feminist soap-opera

Let's go now to the "Gossip Zone" on the feminism bulletin board at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, in which it is still possible to read the posting "Acting Like Those You Attack," which describes dissatisfaction with an instructor. The story behind it and the subsequent responses to it unfold like the plot to a soap opera.

The original posting was from a student who described how she was thrilled to learn that a feminist activist was coming to teach a course this term. Unexpectedly, after the instructor had taught only one class, word was conveyed that she felt that the commute from Taipei to Hsinchu was too inconvenient and that she wouldn't be coming again. The student's point of view was that the instructor should have communicated with the students about the problem, and perhaps discussed if some other time or place was feasible. She expressed outrage that a feminist concerned with social oppression would treat her students so "roughly and unceremoniously." At the end of the essay, the student asked everyone "to think about how to reprimand and punish" the instructor.

Following the posting were responses by students who argued that the trip from Taipei to Hsinchu is indeed a very tiring one, and that the instructor had the right not to teach.

One student noted that on the day of the first class the teacher complained that she had to come all the way from the Taipei suburbs, taking a taxi to the Taipei train station, where she got on a bus to Hsinchu. At the university gate she couldn't find a cab, and after waiting fruitlessly for the campus bus, she eventually had no choice but to walk up hill for 20 minutes. It wasn't until the second week of class that the student learned the class was canceled.

Position of disadvantage

From the students' point of view, there are some things you just can't say to a professor face to face. The problem stems from Chinese students' fear of confrontations. Some students even believe that the student-teacher relationship is by nature unequal. In such an encounter, they hold, a student starts from a position of disadvantage.

"The degree to which professors oppress students is reduced on a BBS," says Chou Ya-chun, a graduate student at Tsing Hua University. She once paid a high price for openly disagreeing with an instructor. A professor had used harsh language to criticize feminism, and she spoke up in the movement's defense. The result was she flunked the final, and her mark was so low that she wasn't even allowed to retake it. To add insult to injury, the same professor had been assigned as her advisor and was responsible for assessing her conduct score. He gave her a 60.

In which case, could BBSs offer a safer place to speak one's mind where students and faculty are on a more equal footing?

"At least it appears more equal on the surface," says Chou Ya-chun. "On a BBS every posting has the same status, with students and profs alike able to post only one message at a time. If you want to fight on a BBS, you've got to spend a lot of time on line." Yet she notes that once a message is entered, it goes everywhere and becomes "hard evidence" of an attack on a professor. It's not necessarily safe.

"Some things students can only get off their chests on a BBS," Chou says. "It's quite sad, really." She describes a case at Hualien Normal College of a student who had been sexually harassed. The victim wrote out a detailed description of what happened, but later asked that people not discuss the incident any further, because the situation had been resolved. At convention-bound and conservative teachers' colleges, the administration will always side with the instructor, holds Chou. When the victim can pour out her grievances on line, at least people will express sympathy for her. This might provide some solace.

Bad news spreads fast

Before campuses were computer networked, students would give their instructors unflattering nicknames behind their backs and make jokes about them, and they would tell their juniors about which classes to take and which instructors to avoid. But it was all word of mouth. Some people believe that a networked campus, where vast numbers of students make their opinions known on BBSs, poses a challenge to faculty authority.

Yeali Sun, head of computer networks at NTU, makes a comparison. Ten years ago when she was a student, students would privately criticize profs, but there was a big difference: "We didn't use disrespectful language."

"The student-teacher relationship hasn't suddenly disappeared because of computer networks," but quite a few teachers have felt under attack, Sun notes, particularly younger instructors, who tend to be thinner skinned. They often have just returned from graduate study abroad, and they care much more about student reactions and are more likely to get depressed about superficial criticisms.

If you ask students if computer networks have destroyed the traditional student-teacher relationship, the answer is usually, "Has it really been destroyed? It doesn't seem to have been!"

Wang Hsiao-mei (a pseudonym), who wrote the essay "Acting Like Those You Attack," says the instructor's behavior was "really too much. It still makes me mad just thinking about it." And so she wrote about it, in the hope that "bad news would travel fast" and other students wouldn't get hurt. Although it "posed a bit of a challenge to the instructor," she feels that her own behavior was "weak" because she didn't dare make her remarks face-to-face.

Chen Kuang-tien, a doctoral student in life sciences at Tsing Hua University who was one of the students being sued for libel in the electric motorcycle incident there, says that the incident became such a big deal because the "professor took a high and mighty attitude" and believed that he had no need to communicate. The students had no intention of challenging anyone, he says, and weren't opposed to electric motorcycles, but simply raised doubts about their commercialization. Since Chou was a member of the campus transportation committee, students were bound to wonder "if banning normal motorcycles wasn't simply a ploy to promote the sale of electric ones." They just wanted the teachers to give an explanation, but what they got was a letter notifying them that they were being sued!

Laughing to forget

If the situation isn't serious, many teachers can accept students making them the butt of their jokes and anger on line.

Li Tsai-yen, an associate professor of information science at National Chengchih University, stresses that teachers who can't take jokes shouldn't log onto a BBS. On the "Maokung" BBS there are three mailboxes for students to deposit their questions for three different courses Li teaches. "When I saw that students had written that they couldn't understand what the heck the professor was talking about, my first response was, 'Am I really that bad?'"

"The key is how you view 'education.'" His view is that students pay money to go to school and so the relationship is like any other buying and selling of services, and profs ought to hold the attitude that "the customer is always right" and do one's very best to satisfy students.

While computer networks are regarded as "interactive media," few instructors use them as communication channels. Tzang Kuo-jen, who claims to enjoy arguing with students on line, says, "Authority ought to be challenged, and teachers shouldn't represent authority."

He believes that in Chinese society groups such as students that are weak don't have much room to express their opinions. Because students are afraid of their professors, they dare not ask questions. This year he is preparing to conduct an experiment: in order to increase students' willingness to express their opinions, on-line discussion will account for 10% of the term's grade.

The battle lines extend

Communication on line resembles a bunch of people sitting in a room and gabbing away. The problem is that you don't know the identities of those partaking in the conversation and you can't see the expressions on their faces. If you are not careful about what you write, differences of opinion are bound to lead to misunderstandings. And since letters on one bulletin board can be reposted on another, battle lines can extend quickly, and once a rumor gets started or discussions involve personal attacks and slander, it can spark a wildfire.

On the Maokung BBS at Chengchih University there once appeared a posting titled "That Asshole Lai," in which a student expressed extreme displeasure that a professor had given him a grade of 30, and asked everyone to go to the office of academic affairs and file complaints against the professor.

Then he posted a follow-up message, "The Grade Can Be Changed," in which he noted that the records department agreed that he and the instructor could come in and look over the exam together. He asked his classmates to show up and offer their "support." Someone responded, "For something as simple as going over the grading of a test, need people gather in mass? Does the sociology department specialize in teaching people to protest? No matter what the teacher did, one need not assume that he is at fault or first go and call him names. This is a public space. So slandering a professor could be viewed as illegal."

Other people wrote to tell this respondent to take back that line about "the sociology department specializing in teaching people to protest." A war of words ensued with people taking one side or the other.

Liu Ting, a professor of mechanical engineering who was one of the faculty members maligned in the Taiwan University mechanical engineering department incident, says that although the students who were playing the malicious prank were caught, "It's not entirely clear what their motive was, because they had no bad blood with the instructors." They said it was a way to have fun with their friends and that they got caught up in the excitement.

Remarkably, after they were caught, they still didn't recognize that their actions had reached the point of libel. Students' inability to grasp what constitutes defamation of character and libel poses a big headache to those responsible for campus networks.

Supporting the boat, rocking the boat

Most campus bulletin boards have posted a self-governing message that reads, "Please don't make personal attacks, or maliciously criticize others." How to determine what constitutes these is left up to those who have authority over each individual BBS, but sometimes because there are so many posted messages, there is little chance to pay attention to each one, and overly emotional ones slip through.

Chen Pai-ling, an assistant professor of journalism at National Chengchih University, argues that since media, old and new, are used by people, people's faults seep into them. While lies and untruths are disseminated off-line as well, these problems are exaggerated on line, because computer networks transfer information so quickly.

Even if computer networks constitute a "weapon" for students, professors can counter with familiar weapons of their own, including "life and death control over assigning grades." How and if these arms should be borne deserves consideration.

In any event, professors in the 90s have indeed learned that the modern campus environment is different. But how great an impact are computer networks having on the traditional student-teacher relationship?

One instructor at a national university who returned from graduate study in the United States five years ago says that he is part of a new "in between" generation of professors who have a sense of the popularity of the new media. Ten years ago when he was an undergraduate in Taiwan, professors had a lot of authority. You might have been angry at an instructor, but you wouldn't have dared to give voice to that anger. And even faculty's unreasonable demands were viewed as just part of students' training. By the time he returned to a Taiwan campus, everything had been turned upside down. Although professors still have some power, students have acquired many rights.

A contribution to campus democracy

Media's character is by nature hard to define. Still, most people on university campuses agree that computer networks have "replaced campus posters as the principal means of expressing differences of opinion and have replaced demonstrations for expressing protest." Because computer networks have seemingly reduced students' fervor for street demonstrations, computer networks have come to be regarded as a "major contributor to campus democratization."

Computer networks have certainly contributed to change on campus, but they haven't entirely replaced face-to-face instruction. The basic nature of communication in the classroom and on campus hasn't changed; computer networks have just opened another channel of communication between faculty and students.

Of course there are many instructors who are quite accepting of computer bulletin boards, who believe that as long as on-line discussions don't get too out of hand, one can take a level-headed approach to on-line criticism, regarding it as nothing out of the ordinary. One instructor in mass communications holds that if on-line criticism of professors stems from teachers' greater authority in Chinese society, then she can understand why students write what they do, but this doesn't mean that such behavior should be encouraged.

She says that in Western societies such as America, where teachers don't have the same authority as they do in Chinese societies, there are strict libel laws. In Taiwan students shouldn't develop the habit of speaking irresponsibly.

Taking the long view, what will campuses be like in 20 or 30 years when faculties are largely composed of today's computer-savvy "new new youth"? Will professors respond to on-line criticism in kind?

Some people compare the relationship between technology and society to a locomotive and a railway track: the train of technological development moves faster as it builds momentum, and the tracks of social conventions and ethics serve as constant directional guides. Do rules of the game need to be established for on-campus networks? If so, then what kind of rules? We're still looking for answers.

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For students drifting through cyberspace, no subject is taboo.

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Computer networks have largely taken over the functions of the old campus notice boards. Transmission via computer networks not only goes a lot farther a lot faster, but it also allows for instant viewing, conversations, and inter-campus exchange. It's no wonder students are so enamored of it. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

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Computer networks are coming to be seen as important channels for exercising student power. The university administration agreed to provide more convenient access to this motorcycle parking lot behind National Chengchih University after students protested on line.

p.125

What topics do students like to discuss? Most campus computer bulletin boards have top-ten lists.

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Han Yu wrote, "Teachers exist to spread the truth, impart skills and answer questions." Sometimes these things are better done face to face. Computer networks can convey neither a concerned look nor a warm smile.

What topics do students like to discuss? Most campus computer bulletin boards have top-ten lists.

Han Yu wrote, "Teachers exist to spread the truth, impart skills and answer questions." Sometimes these things are better done face to face. Computer networks can convey neither a concerned look nor a warm smile.