When Wuhan University's standing vice-president and standing deputy Communist Party secretary were arrested for taking bribes from construction contractors, the shock was said to be "seismic."

The two university officials were in charge of the institution's infrastructure, finance and logistics and "initial probes" reportedly found that the bribes they accepted were "at least in the millions."

The arrests are not that much of a shock, or even a surprise. Nor was the amount of money involved.

We have seen similar cases before. Building projects financed with public money are infamous hotbeds for corruption. Rapid expansion of higher education in China has been accompanied by a nationwide building spree.

Prior to the scandal, corruption charges had already brought down high-ranking officials in six colleges in Hubei province, where the university is based. The two university officials are just the latest addition to an already lengthy list. And we are sure the list could be much longer should serious auditing be conducted on all recent college building projects. With incessant scandals of cheating, some of our colleges have successfully falsified all our ivory tower fantasies. If they used to be fantasies, they no longer are.

It would be yet another case of corruption as a result of failed oversight and everything we have been lamenting about all these years were it not for an ironic detail in the background - the standing deputy Party chief was cited by the Communist Party of China's organizational authorities as a national "model Party worker" in 2006.

We know he is not the first officially endorsed example to let us down. Yet in this case, the contrast is too outrageous to be believable. According to official commendation, he is "diligent and devoted to his work, strict with himself and worked wholeheartedly for public interest, concerned about the people, incorruptible and self-disciplined, and is an intimate friend of the staff."

He may still be a model but obviously not a good one. And the official portrait turns out to be at least partially untrue. He is evidently not incorruptible, nor sufficiently self-disciplined. Otherwise he would not have taken bribes, or ended up being caught.

We wonder if those who granted him the honor regret doing that three years back. It may be unfair to blame them for that. Maybe he was indeed a worthy model then. Only that he suddenly changed and became corruptible and ignored self-restraint. Who knows?

But, after all, putting such a person on a high-profile list is indeed embarrassing. In fairness to the organizational authorities, it would be necessary to present a truthful account of how an otherwise respectable official degenerated into a despicable corrupt one in a matter of less than three years.

The harsh truth will be more than educational.

(China Daily 10/10/2009 page4)