Chairman of Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) of the Executive Yuan, forty-four-year-old Dr. Wei Yung typifies the image of a modern public official. Tall, knowledgeable and energetic, he speaks with confidence and believes in hard work.

Dr. Wei is known as a taskmaster who demands high quality results. But he is willing to work overtime and help the staff himself. He brings a typewriter along on business trips, working on reports at night while others go out on the town.

He is noted for expressing straight forward opinions at important policy meetings. He does not hesitate to make recommendations from his own research. Dr. Wei's suggestion that qualitative improvement is a greater imperative than quantitative improvement in our higher education system did more than raise a few educational eyebrows. He also suggested widening the government employee salary scale to attract more talented people to higher levels of government.

A social scientist by training, Dr. Wei describes his schooling as being in three areas and three stages: child-hood in Szechwan Province, the growing years in Taipei, and the post graduate days in the U.S.A.

In the old village school, Dr. Wei studied Chinese classics; he spent most of his non-school hours climbing trees and catching shrimps and crabs in the streams. The boy who caught the most shrimps and crabs was the hero of the day among the playmates, Dr. Wei recalls. He said he learned at an early stage of life that books do not mean everything. "You have to have experience in living."

Dr. Wei spent his secondary school and undergraduate years in Taipei. He is still proud of having been a straight-A student, as well as an active student body member. He was elected President of the Student Union of National Chengchi University (NCU), where he studied international law and diplomacy. He attended international student meetings as a delegate of the Republic of China.

Dr. Wei passed the Special Civil Examination for Diplomatic Service during his junior year in college. He went to work briefly at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then decided to go abroad for further study because he felt he needed to broaden his knowledge and to strengthen his command of foreign languages.

The five years that followed at the University of Oregon, according to Dr. Wei, were the most challenging and rewarding in his life.

"In Taiwan, my professors preferred historical, legalistic approaches, using descriptive documentary analysis. But the young professors of the University of Oregon were experimenting in the methodology of behavioral science, putting emphasis on statistics, computers and survey techniques. Even many American students could not adjust to the change in methodology and dropped out of school."

Dr. Wei had to work very hard to maintain his scholarship. His efforts were rewarded with a Ph. D. in political science. In 1966, he was offered and accepted a teaching post at the University of Nevada, and later, went on to teach at Memphis State University. In 1974, Dr. Wei was made a full professor, and was elected a National Fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University the same year.

Dr. Wei returned to Taiwan with his family in 1975, 14 years after he went abroad to study. His motives for returning, Dr. Wei said, were led by his consistent determination to serve his homeland. "I had always wanted to come back and work. I returned as a visiting professor to NCU in 1970. During that year I had chance to meet with the then Vice Premier, Chiang Ching-kuo. Vice Premier Chiang was interested in my research on elite recruitment and political development. He asked me if I would like to come back to work for my country. I replied that I would," Dr. Wei recalled.

The opportunity finally came in 1974, but the decision was not an easy one: "I was not sure then which would eventually contribute more to the country: to use my academic base in the United States, or to return right away and put my knowledge to practice. Since my research was centered on elite recruitment, the brain drain, modernization and political development, etc., all of which require verification by data collected in specific countries and regions, I decided I had to return. I am thankful my wife supported this decision fully."

Dr. Wei did not enter government service immediately after he returned. While teaching in National Taiwan University, he first worked as a deputy director at the Institute of International Relations, serving as the secretary general of the Fifth Sino-American Conference on Main land China, and as the editor of Issues and Studies. In 1976 he was appointed by Premier Chiang Ching-kuo as the Chairman of the RDEC.

Dr. Wei described the function and organization of the RDEC: "The commission, established in 1969, is a ministry-level agency directly under the Executive Yuan. It carries out research projects, collects data and makes policy recommendations to the government to increase administrative efficiency. It also exercises certain functions of administrative control and evaluation to insure effective government performance."

The RDEC puts special emphasis on planning and evaluation, because, Dr. Wei said, "The aim of research and development activities is to make advance plans in order to carry out national policy effectively. Evaluation is to increase administrative efficiency as a reference for new plans." The RDEC is responsible for promotion and coordination of these activities among all government agencies.

Dr. Wei describes commission members as "young, dynamic, and well-educated." The average age of the RDEC staff is 38.35 years. One-third have post graduate degrees, including twenty-nine M.A.'s and six Ph. D.'s. Under the guidance of Dr. Wei, the RDEC has established itself as a notably energetic government office, aggressively unearthing problems for solutions and actively combining administrative effort with academic process.

In the 1976-1980 period, the RDEC undertook 103 research projects, of which 74 yielded concrete results. Recommendations based on the findings of these research projects led to the promulgation of the National Compensation Law, the consumer protection regulations, and the improvement of the election system, among others.

Efficiency control measures were adopted to speed up the handling of paperwork in government agencies. In this connection, Dr. Wei notes that all government agencies, put together, handle a total of 490,000 cases of memos in a month. The average time needed for handling each case has been reduced from 7 days to 3.95 days, saving tremendous time and labor.

In spite of a busy public life, Dr. Wei remains an active scholar and private citizen. His life style now is not very different from the life style he had when teaching. He still enjoys spending his free time reading and in family activities with his wife and two children. And, he still manages to publish two to three articles in academic journals each year.

[Picture Caption]

Left: Under the leadership of Dr. Wei Yung, the RDEC is an active government institution. Right: Dr. Wei, an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow in 1977, with foundation chairman Gerald Ford at an awards ceremony.

1. Dr. Ray Cline, executive Director of the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies, presents a book he wrote to Dr. Wei in Taipei. 2. Dr. Wei and his colleagues examine the new computer system at the RDEC. 3. Dr. Wei entertains Mr. Lester Wolff, chairman of the subcommittee of Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Foreign Affairs Committee, of the U.S. Congress. 4. The graph shaws the gradual increase in the qualification of RDEC personnel, while their average age decreases.

1. Dr. and Mrs. Wei at the Hsi-tow resort. 2. Dr. Wei likes boating, swimming, and sketching. 3. Self-portrait of Dr. Wei Yung.

Dr. Wei, an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow in 1977, with foundation chairman Gerald Ford at an awards ceremony.

Dr. Ray Cline, executive Director of the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies, presents a book he wrote to Dr. Wei in Taipei.

Dr. Wei and his colleagues examine the new computer system at the RDEC.

Dr. Wei entertains Mr. Lester Wolff, chairman of the subcommittee of Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Foreign Affairs Committee, of the U.S. Congress.

The graph shaws the gradual increase in the qualification of RDEC personnel, while their average age decreases.

Dr. and Mrs. Wei at the Hsi-tow resort.

Dr. Wei likes boating, swimming, and sketching.

Self-portrait of Dr. Wei Yung.