2016.0725
C. T. James Huang from English Dept. Becomes Academician
The 31st Academician of Academia Sinica was announced on July 7th. Professor C. T. James Huang, currently the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University as well as the alumni of the English Department of NTNU, is elected as one of the Academicians. Professor Huang is the tenth alumni from NTNU receiving this honor.
C. T. James Huang graduate from NTNU in 1971. In 1982, he received the doctoral degree in linguist from MIT. Last year, he was elected as fellow of the Linguistic Society of America. His contribution to formal theoretical linguistics has won for him many distinguished honors and awards, such as Chancellors Professor" from University of California, Irvin , president of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Research Fellowship, Center for advanced Study in the behavioral Sciences Fellowship and the like.
Professor Huang now teaches at Harvard University. He currently lives in the States and happened to come back on business while the list of Academia Sinica was announced. He was invited to the press conference and the first thing he said when deliver the thank you speech is his hometown, Fuli Township at Hualien.
Professor Huang is proud to be the country kid. At that time, many people couldn’t afford finishing schools. His parents sacrificed to let him finish college and he was the first doctor in his village. Born in 1948, Huang is especially grateful of his teachers. The teachers inspired him. Instead of telling him to study medicine, like many top students do, they asked him to pursue his dreams.
He thinks that university is a place where students can learn in different fields and chances are that they will find what most interested them. Many scientist ended up taking a phD in philosophy. Although his major was linguist, a not so popular subject in Taiwan, he thinks humanities aren’t as costly as scientific studies. As long as the government cares about humanities, he is positive about the future of Taiwan.