A dispute between two renowned Peking University professors has been brought dramatically into the open with the publication on a blog of their e-mail exchanges.

 

Zou Hengfu, a professor of economics and also a member of the Young Professional Program of the World Bank, was sacked in April by Zhang Weiying, dean of Guanghua School of Management, a faculty of the university and one of the most famous business schools in China.

 

Zou, 54, wrote Wednesday in his blog that he had been fired by the dean of his faculty in revenge for refusing to help Zhang become elected dean and said he hoped to prevent anything similar from happening again in China.

 

Last Sunday, Zou also made public a letter he wrote to China's minister of education in his blog, complaining about the excessive power of university administrators.

 

Zou, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, was appointed as director of Peking University's applied economics department in 1999 but was demoted in 2006 soon after Zhang was appointed dean of Guanghua School of Management.

 

Zhang informed him through an e-mail of his demotion June 7 last year, saying the decision was made at a faculty-level meeting.

 

Zou said that was because he refused when Zhang asked him for help with his election campaign in 2004.

 

In another e-mail Zhang wrote to Zou on April 6, which was also made public by Zou in his blog, Zhang notified Zou that he would no longer be a professor at the university from May 1 because Zou "had been absent from the school for a long time, not able to take faculty responsibility and heavily involved in other universities' activities."

 

Zou admitted that he had given lectures at a few other universities in recent years, but he had not been absent from Guanghua.

 

According to teachers and students at the university, Zou had publicly criticized Zhang for his academic views on many occasions, including in class in front of Zhang's students.

 

Zhang responded to Zou's allegation Thursday with only one sentence, saying the whole thing was self-evident and needed no explanation.

 

Zou said he hoped he could go back to teach at Peking University, even without pay.

 

Zou is the latest scholar to highlight in-fighting within China's higher education institutions. In March, the demotion of Zhang Ming, a professor at Renmin University of China, sparked nationwide debate about the bureaucracy at universities. The resignation of famous artist Chen Danqing from Tsinghua University in 2004 brought public questions about the recruitment system.

 

(Shenzhen Daily June 15, 2007)