A Study Of Faculty Employment-appointment System Of China's Research Universities

The reform of faculty employment-appointment system in our country is one of the main themes in the management of higher institutions. In recent 20 years, many colleges and universities have carried out the reform according to their own situation. However, the practice has little effectiveness. Beijing University and Sun Yat-sen University promulgated the program about faculty employment-appointment system firstly in 2003. As a symbol, the reform of China's faculty employment-appointment system has gone into a deeper phase. Honestly, although the reform has some effectiveness, people always pay more attention to the controversy and the problems triggered by the reform. It seems that it's difficult for the reform to go further .Considering this situation, it is particularly necessary to give some recommendations based on the study of the problems and the core value that the reform should uphold.Because the reform of faculty employment-appointment system is a big and broad issue, it is difficult to research comprehensively. This paper attempts to explore the key issue----how to protect the fundamental status of Academic Profession. I choose Academic Profession as the angle of view and take the methods of theory explaining and case studies. The paper selects three representative research universities: Beijing University, Sun Yat-sen University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. After analyzed the effectiveness and the major problems and controversies of the reform, I put forward some proposals for it.Conclusions of the paper are as follows: Because of the special conditions and historical traditions of China, the faculty employment- appointment system lacks support of academic tradition and academic beliefs from the beginning. The problems such as the access of Academic Profession, post setting, the assessment of faculty, employment contracts, firing system and so on reflect this lack. So, in the latter part of the paper, advices mainly consider how to defend academic freedom, how to uphold the academic equality and academic fairness.