Today, Dr. Wang Nuo of Xiamen University published a long open letter on his personal social platform. I have read the contents of this letter in detail and made the following interpretation.
(1) In fact, Dr. Wang Nuo has clearly explained his academic attainments in his letter. He feels that he has reached the extreme that can be achieved in related fields. If we persist in not making any breakthroughs, then our achievements will not be higher than today. So in this respect, he may have quit the academic circle to pursue a higher-level academic career.
(2) Dissatisfaction with the status quo. In fact, more places in the letter are still talking about Wang Nuo's dissatisfaction with some current evaluation criteria and specific measures. The letter said that in Xiamen University, doctoral supervisors must spend some money for the survival of doctoral students. In this regard, Dr. Wang Nuo's point of view is that in the process of cultivating students, he helps students to correct their papers and give lectures free of charge, and does not let students do anything for themselves at all, so he should not take money out.
I won't comment on this question. Because for our school, in fact, students are also completing some projects of their tutors when writing their papers. But I don't know what Xiamen University is like, so I won't comment.
Another point is that Xiamen University stipulates that if the number of people taking a course is not enough, it is not allowed to recruit doctoral students.
On this issue, I think there is indeed something unreasonable. This is tantamount to asking the teacher to make this course more attractive. But as we all know, some subjects are actually boring, so few people are really interested. If you want more students to take courses, it will only reduce the difficulty of the course.
However, the doctoral supervisor in Wang Nuo is unwilling to reduce the difficulty of the course for this reason, so this is also a main reason for his leaving.
So, generally speaking, the doctoral supervisor in Wang Nuo probably wants to jump out of the present life and live a more comfortable and leisure life.