Free Web NovelChapter 662: Chapter 372: Finally Left One Behind! _2
""Let’s move on!"
"Don’t waste time, bring in the next one!"
With a hint of gloom, Zhao Yi returned to the candidate’s room.
When he pushed the door open again, he felt a lot more relaxed, at the very least, the initial screening went smoothly. He reassured Huang Zhong and others, saying, "It’s nothing to worry about. The process is straightforward— it’s just a self-introduction, that’s all."
"Everyone, don’t be nervous."
"Good luck!"
Zhao Yi’s comfort and encouragement likely did some good. At the very least, all the candidates who attended the screening successfully passed this part of the audition by the committee, and none were instantly screened out.
Perhaps because there were more vacancies than candidates, competition was not present among candidates, leading to a amicable atmosphere among them, full of enjoyment and laughter.
The candidates were arranged to have lunch together when it got to noon.
Upon completion of his screening, Zhao Yi was called into a different conference hall to continue discussing the issues regarding Supersymmetry with several academicians. Unaware of the screening situation, he only returned around lunchtime. He asked with a relaxed tone, "How did the screening go this morning? It was easy, wasn’t it? I didn’t expect it, I had even prepared a...."
He didn’t finish his sentence.
Everyone else’s faces darkened slightly.
The Academic Standing Committee had indeed made the screening process simple for Zhao Yi. Some members thought the screening process was unnecessary for him and advocated for instant approval. The process was not as easy for the others.
Compared to Zhao Yi, the other candidates’ achievements fell somewhat short, so naturally, proper auditing was needed.
This is the responsibility of the Academic Standing Committee.
Their audit focuses mainly on academic achievements in an effort to prevent ’academic ethics’ issues. Any potential whistleblowing after the fact—such as plagiarism or misrepresentation of a freshly-inaugurated academic’s papers—would be a huge humiliation for the department. The Academic Standing Committee is chiefly responsible for ensuring the ’academic ethics’ of the candidate scholars.
As such, the other candidates had been thoroughly ’vexed’ by the Academic Standing Committee.
Huang Zhong’s screening process took the longest as his achievements were all theoretical physics centered around magnetic forces of microscopic particles. It involved strong and weak forces, and the aggregate forces of a large number of particles posed through complex mathematics. It was needless to say that it was extremely difficult to comprehend.
The screening process could be seen as the ’committee giving Huang Zhong a hard time,’ as much as it could be seen as ’Huang Zhong giving the committee a hard time.’
While the members of the Academic Standing Committee were all academicians in the department, they were not knowledgeable in all areas. There is a saying, ’Switching fields is like crossing mountains,’ and this holds true in academic circles.
Mathematics and physics have many branches.
Understanding more about a ’smaller field’ implies expertise in a narrower domain. On the other hand, mathematics and physics cover an extremely wide range. For someone in a ’large field’ to attempt to understand different topics within a ’small field’ is considerably difficult.
Zhao Yi himself had heard numerous innovative ideas from Huang Zhong. Not to mention scholars who hadn’t studied particle mathematics, comprehending the findings explained by Huang Zhong and understanding his thought processes and research techniques was a nearly insurmountable challenge.
Fortunately, the audit was over.
All candidates sat down together for a meal, not discussing the ’ease of auditing.’ The atmosphere was very good. Huang Zhong and the other three were nervous about the academician voting in the afternoon and felt somewhat worried. But at this stage, worry served no purpose.
"If I don’t get elected this year, I’ll just wait a few more years," said Huang Zhong. "Anyway, I’m just fifty; there are still opportunities."
Actually, he was forty-nine years old.
The other three candidates were different, the oldest of whom was already sixty-seven. Having passed the ’academician age bracket’ of sixty-six years old, he needed the nomination of six academicians to become a candidate for academician supplementation.
If he missed the academician supplementation this year and didn’t produce any significant findings in the future, there was little likelihood he would ever be eligible in his lifetime.
However,...
There is not much to be sympathetic about here.
The title of Acamedician is the highest professional title for scholars in the country, and any hierarchical group forms a pyramid in terms of the number of people at different levels. Most professors have no eligibility for supplementation in their lifetime, let alone obtaining the title of academician. Having the qualification to participate in academician selection is already an extraordinary achievement.
Besides, academician status is not a certificate of honor. If you can’t be elected as an academician when you are young and fail to produce significant results when you are old, it’s somewhat unfair to young scholars who have made contributions.
In this regard, Zhao Yi has considerable respect for He Mingcheng.
He Mingcheng is well-known in academic circles, but he has not participated in the academician supplementation since he passed the age of sixty. He knows that he is unable to make any major achievements, so he simply does not actively do anything.
Of course.
Some old professors want to be elected as academicians and get affirmed for their lifelong academic research, which is perfectly normal. It can only be said that different people have different perspectives and different ideas, and their positions are not the same.
...
At two o’clock in the afternoon.
The Department of Mathematical Physics officially held the meeting. After a whole series of complicated speeches and dealing with formalities, the process of academician supplementation voting began.
The candidates of the academician supplementation were not allowed to enter the venue and could only wait in the outer room.
As the meeting would last two to three hours, Zhao Yi, impatient with waiting outside, took the liberty to stroll around the venue. If not for the end of the supplementation meeting when he would personally submit the materials to the department committee and hand them over to the presidium for evaluation, he would have returned straight to Yanhua University. frёeωebɳovel.com
At the venue.
The process of academician supplementation voting starts with speeches by delegates.
This time, it was the director of the Department of Mathematical Physics, Yu Peiyuan. He made a lengthy seven-thousand-word speech, mostly declaring the start of the effort and emphasizing the importance of fair and just supplementation. He elaborated his opinions on the supplementation work, and gave a general report on the annual supplementation.
Etcetera.
There was a lot of content in seven thousand words that made the attendees drowsy.
Fortunately, it ended eventually.
After the department director’s speech, the process of supplementing the votings began, with all participants casting their votes for each candidate.
There were sixty-four academicians participating in supplementation voting this time, and each person could cast one ’anonymous vote’ for each candidate.
The voting only consisted of ’approve’ and ’disapprove’. Because only approval votes were counted in the end, even ’abstentions’ were counted as ’disapproved’.
Zhao Yi was the first candidate in line for supplementation.
The voting started with Zhao Yi, and shortly after the staff had collected the votes and compiled them, Yu Peiyuan, presiding over the meeting, announced the results. "The candidate, Professor Zhao Yi, has received more than two-thirds of the votes."
It was quieted down.
That result was expected.
The number of votes for the academician supplementation will not be released to the public, and even the number of votes received will not be announced within the venue. Only the final ordering will be announced, and the top candidates equivalent to the number of supplementation slots will be accepted.
The voting that followed was actually interesting.
The second, third, and even the fourth candidate all did not pass the voting round.
Yu Peiyuan announced the results three times. "The candidate, Professor Zhou XX, has received less than two-thirds of the votes."
"The candidate, Professor Wang XX, has received less than two-thirds of the votes."
"The candidate, Professor Meng XX, has received less than..."
At that point, the meeting room started to buzz.
The Department of Mathematical Physics had seven supplementation slots, but only five scholars to be supplemented in the second round. How was it possible that three were eliminated in voting?
Lastly....
Huang Zhong!
He’s forty-nine?
HIs major research topic is particle mathematics?
Perhaps some older academicians felt that it wasn’t right to only elect Zhao Yi and noticing that Huang Zhong was still under fifty - a young and promising scholar - they directly cast their approval votes.
The last prep round of voting was over.
Yu Peiyuan looked at the results with anxiety, and finally, took a long breath of relief and announced proudly, "The candidate, Professor Huang Zhong, has received more than two-thirds of the votes!"
His voice echoed at the highest pitch since the start of the match.
