If you want to understand global corporate management (not to mention the academic environment), it’s surely a valid subject, is my impression.
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We will just have to agree to disagree. The Taiwanese are going to do things their way especially at NTU. It’s just tough cookies if some random foreigners don’t like it and think they are entitled to access to the feeding trough.
What’s the harm, really? This is just a silly continuing ed course. They have to cobble these together and meet all kinds of ridiculous administrative requirements. Let them go in peace.
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I understand why they think it benefits them in a corporate environment. I think it’s typicallly hypocritical though as DEI doesn’t even exist in Taiwan. Legally they actually push anti DEI by government policy.!
And yeah good luck getting a DEI appointment to teach that course in Taiwan lol .
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Aren’t there various forms of affirmative action in Taiwan?
Can focus on some positives: high representation of women in executive and political positions, first country in Asia to legalisr gay marriage, no straight white men teaching the course…
Probably to get it past the MOE. Nobody who knows anything will sign up voluntarily I think. Someone who knows little, like a fresh grad from America at a buxiban, might see the Facebook at and fall for it
Would be funny to watch a young true believer in woke/CRT/DEI who is a gay black woman just dominate those discussions
Given Taiwan’s political economy over the past few decades, the “D” part is fine; it’s the “E” that is viewed as silly and can safely be skipped.
Guy
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Some for aboriginals and a little for foreign spouses (women).
Otherwise many government policies are discriminating against poor people, people of colour , different races etc and to a huge degree.
Hiding behind a figleaf of they aren’t citizens or they aren’t from here doesn’t cut it. We are talking about a million people being discriminated against.
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That’s largely the same everywhere.
I know what you mean. But things are (very slowly) changing. The government has decreed that foreigners will be making up a signficant part of the workforce. There are tens of thousands of Vietnamese who need to be managed in non-labor jobs and there will be more soon. In their own way, Taiwanese are starting to think about these issues. It won’t be pretty of course and there will be plenty of comedy gold.
Hence module 1: “The first module focuses on entertainment, particularly on the developments of musical and filmic productions and procedures.” [tee hee].
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There must be stuff for women, definitely stuff for Indigenous. Just a different label and approach, has been going on for years, much of it laudable.
But relabelling as DEI at the same time the private sector globally takes a huge step back, not to mention the Trump effect, is well… what a joke
No argument there. The world is pretty f&cked up right now.
I guess stepping back I doubt that this kind of neoliberal pseudo business management stuff will help. It seems it’s part of a larger neoliberal turn to pull universities away from their (not always realized) critical function toward some dumbed down business school.
Guy
They tried to stick in a bunch of 'trendy topics ’ gaming lol, but completely miss the zeitgeist both at home and abroad.
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Yes I think you are nailing it here. It’s a strategy of management of a shifting political economy, learning to manage other bodies. It should not be mistaken in any way with critical thought or an extension of any of the traditional functions of a university.
Guy
That is my main objection to this. Look at the first teacher Pao-Hsiang Wang. He seems like a fine humanist. Why not let him teach Shakespeare, fin-de-siècle drama, and opera—things he appears to actually be interested in and have expertise in.
But no. He is roped into this nonsense about " analyzing emerging economies from economical and financial perspectives of the manufacturing-consumer markets, FDI recipients and outward investors (Casanova & Miroux, 2017), or the changing demographics of the E20 (Kharas, 2010), this course proposes to teach and interpret emerging economies from an interdisciplinary standpoint."
It is likely that no one will read or write anything.
Harumph! Grump, grump.
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If writers block hits chatgpt can sort out these courses in 30 mins or so.
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Chatgpt will respond to Deepseek. Everybody keeps diverse.
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It’s one module, probably will serve a useful purpose for introducing people here to these concepts, if only for the sake of knowing what’s going on out there.
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I’m sure AI can be used to ‘amplify’ these perspectives on DEI very effectively. Hell, people probably don’t even have to make their own powerpoint slides anymore. And I thought that was the nadir of civilization.
Extra credit for setting up autonomous AI bots to take the classes alongside the actual students??
Repent! The end is nigh!!
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. . . so far. 
Guy
Perhaps, but if you properly take “equity” to mean “equality of outcome”, then there are some arguments to be made against it. Diversity and inclusivity, not so much
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